From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

This week's cover stories on "good" cholesterol nearly created a crisis in the home of senior writer David Brand, who wrote both the main story and the accompanying article on nutrition. Brand became so intrigued by the topic that he began to analyze the cholesterol content of all the meals his family ate. "That nearly drove my daughters Leslie and Robyn crazy," he recalls. "They accused me of ruining every meal and wanted to ban the subject altogether." Never an autocrat at the table, Brand capitulated in the interest of domestic peace.

A native of Kent, in the southeast of England, Brand has shown a similar fascination with new topics throughout his career. As a teenager he wandered through much of Europe, ultimately setting out for the New World, where he worked as a reporter in Montreal. Later he earned a B.A. from New York University. For 16 years, Brand worked at the Wall Street Journal, where as a science reporter he won an American Association for the Advancement of Science-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for stories on protein research and artificial intelligence. After a few years of helping edit the paper's front page, he went to London as a Journal correspondent. Among his assignments was a visit to Siberia to report on Soviet science. He joined TIME as a senior editor in 1983, where one of his first duties was editing a cover article on the dangers of cholesterol. Eighteen months ago, Brand returned to his first love, writing, and has since applied his curiosity to such subjects as Asian-American students, the environment and the hospice movement. In preparation for this week's stories, Brand so immersed himself in the subject that he even had his own cholesterol count checked. He was relieved to find it was 170, well within the low-risk range. But that should have come as no surprise. A self-described "food fanatic," Brand avoids cholesterol-rich dishes and relaxes by preparing Chinese meals that are low in saturated fats. He credits his diet sense to the influence of his wife Sandra, a former registered nurse who works as an executive chef. In normal times, though, the Brands seldom discuss nutrition at the table, especially when their daughters are eating at home.