By MARTIN JOHNSTON
A man who had the highest-known cholesterol level in New Zealand is now back to normal, and heart experts cannot explain why.
Jaype Bester was tagged a "walking time bomb" in December by doctors worried that he was at serious risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The 49-year-old
Auckland church pastor's total cholesterol level was measured at 43 millimoles per litre of blood by laboratory Medlab Diagnostic and by North Shore Hospital.
But last Wednesday Medlab reported that it was down to 5 - the upper limit of the normal range.
"It's like the white cloud they talk about over New Zealand has been lifted off my back," said Mr Bester, who arrived from South Africa last year. "My wife just started crying when she heard the news."
Doctors say a powerful cholesterol-lowering statin drug, coupled with a strict diet cutting out saturated fats, can force cholesterol down 50 per cent.
Mr Bester has cut out dairy foods and is taking diabetes drugs, but he has only just received a prescription for a statin drug.
"You are talking to an evangelist," said Mr Bester, pastor of the Afrikaans-speaking congregation Living Word in Browns Bay. "Obviously it's only a miracle from God."
His GP, Dr Cecil Williams, agreed, saying Mr Bester had been receiving only a low dose of another cholesterol drug to see if his body tolerated it.
Dr Ralph Stewart, a Green Lane Hospital cardiologist, said Mr Bester's cholesterol reduction was dramatic and he could offer no explanation for it.
"There must be some very rare metabolic disturbance ... and presumably whatever it was has to some extent been resolved."
Another cardiologist suggested the high level might have been caused by an inherited disorder that was more common among South Africans.
