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Diet and exercise. That’s the trick.

I know you’ve heard it before and likely don’t want to hear it again, but if you have a health related question, there’s a fair chance that the answer you’re looking for is diet and exercise. No two ways about it, those are the most important things you can do to make sure you live a long, healthy life.

Take natural lowering cholesterol, for example. You don’t need statins, which wikipedia.org defines as the following

The statins (or HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) are a class of drugs that lower cholesterol levels in people with or at risk of cardiovascular disease

They lower cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which is the rate-limiting enzyme of the mevalonate pathway of cholesterol synthesis. Inhibition of this enzyme in the liver results in decreased cholesterol synthesis as well as increased synthesis of LDL receptors, resulting in an increased clearance of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) from the bloodstream. The first results can be seen after one week of use and the effect is maximal after four to six weeks.

Crestor and Lipitor are statins, and while they do a good job, they come with side effects. And side effects suck.

No, for natural lowering cholesterol, you want to concentrate on diet and exercise. Get the high fat, high cholesterol and processed foods out of your diet. Nothing that comes in a box or in shrink-wrap, nothing you throw in the microwave for two minutes, nothing that, when you look at the packaging, you think “I don’t know what that is.”

Instead eat fresh fruit. Make yourself a salad and add olive oil and vinegar instead of using premade dressings which invariably have ingredients you want no part of. Make beans or lentils with rice for a meal or two – that’s a complete protein, same as chicken, beef or fish. Eat a handful of raw almonds if you’re hungry.

And make sure to work out. Four times a week or more if possible, getting your heart rate to 120 at a bare minimum. Though 150 and above is better.

This is the way to natural lowering cholesterol. You don’t need to do anything fancy or go by the latest trend. Just do what’s worked for humans for eons. Go by what your common sense tells you Eat fresh, healthy foods. Get out of your recliner and go for a jog. Do a few push-ups before you go to sleep.

And quit smoking. Do all that, and you’ll see your cholesterol start to drop like a rock.

Manic Depression is one of my favorite songs to come out of the 1960s, a hardcore guitar riff with a driving drum-and-base backup, all punctuated by Jimi Hendrix’s mellow voice singing over the stew of sounds. It’s considered one of the band’s best by many, which is why I love it so much. It’s considered one of Jimi’s best by very few, since it highlights the work of his rhythm section Noel Redding (bass) and Mitch Mitchell (drums) as much as it does the man himself.

Manic Depression was written for and released on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album, “Are You Experienced?”, which came out in May of 1967. Wikipedia.org gives the background on how the song came to be written, and the various cover versions of it produced in the 42 years since

The song’s name, Manic Depression, is an old name for bipolar disorder, a mental health disorder. There is no evidence that Hendrix ever suffered from (or did not suffer from) bipolar disorder himself, but when he was doing a press conference in London his manager at the time, Chas Chandler, told him that he sounded like a manic depressive. So the next day Hendrix wrote this tune.

“Manic Depression” has been covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers Styx Blood, Sweat and Tears Tanya Donelly Carnivore Nomeansno David Ryan Harris Seal & Jeff Beck Clawfinger Jan Hammer Katharina Franck King’s X Stevie Ray Vaughan Yngwie J. Malmsteen et al. The Hungarian Gypsy band Besh O Drom have a track called M ni s Depresszi on their album Gyi! which uses Hendrix’s tune. Rozz Williams and Gitane Demone released a very different version of Manic Depression on their album Dream Home Heartache. Singer/comedian Sandra Bernhard combined the song with the song “Close Your Eyes” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar to create the song Manic Superstar on her album Excuses For Bad Behavior (Part One).

As the second song on side one of Are You Experienced, Manic Depression holds a hallowed place in rock and roll history. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Are You Experienced the fifteenth greatest album in rock history, and Manic Depression – namely, the musicality of the rhythm section added to Hendrix’s always virtuoso guitar work – is one of the big reasons why. Guitarist magazine went even further, naming it the single most influential guitar album ever made.

Will it ever be topped? It’s doubtful.