Got my yearly physical, cholesterol was way high 303, Dr obviously is going to want to put me back on Statins. Kinda hesitant because I have read some studies doubting the cholesterol hypothesis and the Statins effectiveness. I am have no other heart disease risk factors. Just looking for some educated and uneducated opinions.
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Statins
- Thread starter mundus
- Start date
Have you made any dietary adjustments yet? I’d start there. Many recommend cutting out fat, but there’s a good amount of evidence that it’s very effective to cut out sugar and carbs. They lead to an increase in triglycerides which can cascade to bad cholesterol levels. I would keep healthy oils in your diet. Eat a lot of foods that increase nitric oxide in your blood. It is critical to blood vessel health. I also had very good success with odorless garlic supplements. Look for the brand Kyolic. Those plus diet significantly reduced my cholesterol.
But, sometimes stuff like genetics just leads to high cholesterol and a statin is the best route to treat. If you end up having to go the statin route, look into water soluble statins like rosuvastatin and pravastatin. They have a better side effect profile.
But, sometimes stuff like genetics just leads to high cholesterol and a statin is the best route to treat. If you end up having to go the statin route, look into water soluble statins like rosuvastatin and pravastatin. They have a better side effect profile.
Actually got some better news from most recent test, Cholesterol is down to 238 through diet alone. It just sucks that everything I like to eat is full on Cholesterol and even worse sugar
Been taking one 40 MG Atorvastatin before bedtime past +decade. Numbers dropped to acceptable levels. Agree it’s tough (impossible) to remove cholesterol from our daily diets, pill seems to do the trick for me. Good luck going forward amigo. John
20mg for me. No numbers in the yellow/red zone last blood test 6 months ago. First time in years for triglycerides under the level. El doc was shocked! BP 140/85, pluse 130 this morning. Getting out of the yellow/red zone is more difficult than the maintenance. It’s not something that happens in a month and not without diet changes.
I fought against it for years, tried to control high cholesterol with diet, could not make a dent in it. Finally, my doc had me get a calcium score and I couldn't argue with the results: I had a significant buildup of calcium plague in my arteries and no diet was ever gonna change it. Started taking one 80 mg Atorvastatin daily, 3-4 years ago, my cholo dropped into acceptable levels, been that way ever since. No regrets, statins seem to do what they are supposed to do.
I understand diet can only make a 3-5% dent in your cholesterol level. Years back my MD told me that my cholesterol was normal but that one of the factors used in the calculation is age, and that sooner or later my age would push me into a range where I needed statins.
Then I got diagnosed with the myocardial bridge. That risk factor (and the fact my dad died of a heart attack at 58), and my age lowered my risk threshold. I have to keep my total under 150. Last year it was 170. My HDL (good cholesterol) was 82 which is great, triglycerides 88, and my LDL was 72 which for anyone else would be normal, but my cardiologist put me on statins, 20mg 2x a day. Next check up is in February.
Then I got diagnosed with the myocardial bridge. That risk factor (and the fact my dad died of a heart attack at 58), and my age lowered my risk threshold. I have to keep my total under 150. Last year it was 170. My HDL (good cholesterol) was 82 which is great, triglycerides 88, and my LDL was 72 which for anyone else would be normal, but my cardiologist put me on statins, 20mg 2x a day. Next check up is in February.
Do everything you can to stay off big pharma poison. 238 is fine unless you are eating tons of sugar and processed sh!t. I eat 2 servings of red meat a day and I was 235 this time. Up from 190. Doctor not at all worried knowing how meticulous my diet is.
Have you tried Vitamin K2? It's supposed to help mobilize and dispatch calcium from where it's not needed to where it is. Very low in the western diet because it only exists in very specific foods.
No I haven't but thanks for the suggestion. Not sure how I would work that in, at this point. Anyway, I quizzed the doc pretty hard after my dismal CCS came back about how to get rid of the buildup, with diet or whatever - apparently, you can mitigate a tiny bit of what plaque you have accumulated over the decades of your life, but not much. The goal is to not accumulate anymore.
The CCS doc was a trip - CCS is like his mission in life, he wrote a book about it, which he gives to all his patients, along with a personal action plan, going forward. Does everyone here know their score?
Amazon.com: Get More from Your Score: How to Prevent YOUR First Heart Attack Using Cardiac Calcium Scoring (CCS) eBook : Janik, Matthew: Kindle Store
Amazon.com: Get More from Your Score: How to Prevent YOUR First Heart Attack Using Cardiac Calcium Scoring (CCS) eBook : Janik, Matthew: Kindle Store
www.amazon.com
Are you taking low dose aspirin? I was. Then I was told it was no longer necessary. Then it was suggested I resume.
There was some info here- https://forum.surfer.com/index.php?threads/heart-health.237194/
Who was “doubting the cholesterol hypothesis?“ Squidley. Makes you wonder…
Because Squiddily has the same concerns as I do, I now know my concerns were nonsense, Statins FTW. BTW just did 40 pushups in a minute without too much struggle in one set.
Pretty easy to supplement K2. I take one with vitamin d in the same pill.
Not sure if it will reverse calcium build up but it could keep it from happening further.
Squid key is a wack job but there is some merit to the idea that dietary cholesterol is not to blame for hearty disease. Dates back to Ansel Keyes conveniently leaving out data for countries where fat consumption is high (Greece and Italy iirc) but people were healthy. Then Big Food jumped all over it because now they had a home for all the excess seed based oils they produce.
From what I understand, your baseline is largely genetic and from there is tied to how much fat tissue you carry around. Diet can only move that needle so much. High cholesterol is therefore correlated to heart disease but not the cause itself.
Interesting topic, as a layman I have to go with the majority of mainstream medical knowledge. Is it always right? No, but more often than the alternative .
yup, my sister lives in France and she tells me what's considered high cholo here is not necessarily considered high across europe. i can't account for the differences and the variables - diet, lifestyle, etc etc - but the CCS image of my arteries was enough to push me off the fence. as far as i can could determine, the benefits of statins far outweigh any potential downside. ymmv,
from what i determined on my own poking around on this subject and talking to my doc, i probably created the bulk of my plaque problem as a smoker for 25 years, age 12-37, and i can't unring that bell. so be it.
Thanks for posting, my simpletons take is it is complicated but take statins anyway.
This is not fringe Rogan stuff. There is actual peer review medical research on the topic and the consensus is shifting.
You do know that the sugar industry basically paid medical researchers in the 70s to demonize dietary fat, don't you?