High Cholestrol

[Johnnyboxer]

What is a low dose? I’ve been on 20mg/day for many years and probably for the first two I had muscle aches. In fact the first product I was prescribed had me in agony and it was changed to Atovastatin [that may not be the correct spelling]

That’s the one I am on
Atorvastatin
Been on it for 2-3 months now and zero side effects
20mg (Doc said 40mg was more usual)
Blood tests after 6 months to see how the changes have transpired

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Ticagrelor is a blood thinner, not a beta blocker, Ramipril a different family again to both. Given for various reasons after heart attack and for variable times

Ok, I may have the wrong one.

I've gone from Aspirin, Tricagrelor, Bisoprolol, Ramipril & Atorvastatin to Clopidogrel (only for 8 weeks), Apixaban, Bisoprolol, Ramipril & Atorvastatin.

The difficulty drawing deep breaths disappeared within 8 hours of the drug change.

 

[Gordy1]

I've never tried a meter but have a good read around the subject. The "Diet health hypothesis" that cholesterol causes heart disease has been blown to pieces. Cholesterol is essential for the body and cutting it too low can have neurological side effects that you really don't want. Some Statins also have other nasty common side effects.

6.9 isn't really that high anyway if you don't have other high risks.

No, other than that I am ok, normal blood pressure ( for my age....68), hearing, eyesight, urine test,BMI, weight,all ok.......she was just concerned about the 6.9 & told me to make an appointment to see the doctor about it & also ask for a blood test, after looking it up on her computer she reckoned I had 25% chance of a heart attack or stroke in the next 10yrs!!!, I haven’t seen the doctor yet I’ll try to get it back to normal myself then get tested at my next medical in a years time see how it is then., I’ve been on a 3.5mile walk around the fields this evening & I felt like a 40yr old., well going by her I should be having another 9yrs to go yet!!

 

[johnb5555]

Best thing to reduce blood pressure etc is cut out sugar and reduce processed carbs like bread, pasta, cakes etc, but that advice never gets given because of the power of the processed food/sugar industry.

I'm screwed then I live on coffee with one sugar, bread and pasta.

Though my BMI and blood pressure are fine my cholesterol is 6.1 so ive been on statin(Atorvastain 80mg) and blood thinner for 3 months

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I'm screwed then I live on coffee with one sugar, bread and pasta.

Though my BMI and blood pressure are fine my cholesterol is 6.1 so ive been on statin(Atorvastain 80mg) and blood thinner for 3 months

Really? 80mg is a very high dose unless you've had a heart incident. 40mg would be more normal in your situation I understand.

 

[milkloss]

the Doc will usually prescribe the cheapest statins he can get his hands on. Many people don't get on with these (headaches, body aches etc) and should go back to change to what will probably be more expensive /branded versions.

statins are known to help with eyes as they prevent fat blocking the capillaries in the retina.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

the Doc will usually prescribe the cheapest statins he can get his hands on. Many people don't get on with these (headaches, body aches etc) and should go back to change to what will probably be more expensive /branded versions.

statins are known to help with eyes as they prevent fat blocking the capillaries in the retina.

There's increasing investigation around just what does cause arterial blockage now the diet health hypothesis has collapsed. Much discussion is around arterial wall inflammation being at the root of it. Blood lipid levels have to be very high for fats to cause it alone.

It's largely our unnatural processed foods that cause severe inflammation, all of the clever industrially designed and produced ingredients that stimulate flavour, appetite and extend shelf life.

I believe we will look back in 50 years on our diets today with the same horror that we now apply to tobacco and asbestos.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I think it is sugar causing the problems (and I am a sugarholic!)

The Case Against Sugar By Gary Taubes | Used & New | 9781846276392 | World of Books

Buy The Case Against Sugar By Gary Taubes. New & used copies available with free delivery in the UK. ISBN: 9781846276392. ISBN-10: 184627639X

www.worldofbooks.com

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I think it is sugar causing the problems (and I am a sugarholic!)

The Case Against Sugar By Gary Taubes | Used & New | 9781846276392 | World of Books

Buy The Case Against Sugar By Gary Taubes. New & used copies available with free delivery in the UK. ISBN: 9781846276392. ISBN-10: 184627639X

www.worldofbooks.com

It's hidden in everything supermarkets sell these days. Different names are used for it to spread it out in the ingredients list.

Sugar
Sucrose
Fructose
HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup industrially extracted from maize)
Etc, etc.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

And the bread/pasta we eat soon turns to sugar too.

There is an Israeli company that uses machine learning to analyse your micro biome and give a personalised diet related to you, however it is only working in the USA and Israel at the moment

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...rithm-creates-diets-that-work-for-you/416583/

Home | DAYTWO

Covers a range of chronic conditions— impacting over 50% of employees Type 2 DiabetesPrediabetesClinical ObesityNAFLD

www.daytwo.com

 

[Lowland1]

Noone has said change your diet. Surely the first thing to do is work out why cholesterol is high and try and work on the cause rather than take treatment for the symptoms. It seems that doctors are quite prepared to hand out the tablets rather than telling people that they can actually do something themselves.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

And the bread/pasta we eat soon turns to sugar too.

There is an Israeli company that uses machine learning to analyse your micro biome and give a personalised diet related to you, however it is only working in the USA and Israel at the moment

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...rithm-creates-diets-that-work-for-you/416583/

Home | DAYTWO

Covers a range of chronic conditions— impacting over 50% of employees Type 2 DiabetesPrediabetesClinical ObesityNAFLD

www.daytwo.com

All carbohydrate breaks down to sugars at some level.

Fascinatingly, I learnt from Tim Spector's book (I think) that we all react differently to diet. He is running the ZOE study where people are bing fitted with realtime monitors to look at the biochemical effect of diet on health. He found his blood sugar spiked twice as high after a toast and jam breakfast as his wife's did!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Noone has said change your diet. Surely the first thing to do is work out why cholesterol is high and try and work on the cause rather than take treatment for the symptoms. It seems that doctors are quite prepared to hand out the tablets rather than telling people that they can actually do something themselves.

Being cynical but there's no profit in telling people to change their diet. Statins have been amongst the most profitable drugs the industry has even created hence all the pressure to get folk onto them by fair means or (legally) foul.

 

[ollie989898]

It is standard NICE guidance for all heart attack patients to be placed on:

Maximum dose statins
ACE inhibitors
BETA Blockers
Anti-platelet therapy

I have gone along with it for the first year while they determine my "optimum drug regime" and see how I recover.

I feel fine overall and am fitter than before my heart attack but they say I am "severely compromised" in heart function. I am due a heart MRI scan next month to get a better idea just how badly my heart is still affected. After that I will push much harder for my drug regime to change or I will cut my statin dose myself.

Truth is, the cardiac team are measured on my cardiac indicators and don't really care much if my neurology declines as a result of the drugs they prescribe. After my heart attack I found it impossible to take really deep breaths. It could have been due to the heart damage but is a recognised side effect some people get from Tricagrelor, the BETA Blocker they had me on. They couldn't accept my suggestion that I tried stopping it for a week to see if it was actually the cause. When they changed me from Tricagrelor to Ramipril for a medical reason after 6 months my shortness of breath stopped immediately. Each team works in a silo and focusses on just their own criteria.

I have no doubt NICE guidelines for heart attack involve those medications but I don't know if people should be given them long term or are they a combined short duration type of treatment only?

It is important that patients feed back to their consultant that they don't like drug X or have a problem with a side effect- evidence based medicine is supposed to take account the views/experiences of the actual patient as well. I.e. if you don't get on well with X then they should consider prescribing you Y to at least try.

 

[ollie989898]

Being cynical but there's no profit in telling people to change their diet. Statins have been amongst the most profitable drugs the industry has even created hence all the pressure to get folk onto them by fair means or (legally) foul.

I have no doubt that is the case, relatively cheap (compared to other treatments) and with less problematic side effects, I would bet statins are a cash cow for pharma worldwide.

 

[johnb5555]

Really? 80mg is a very high dose unless you've had a heart incident. 40mg would be more normal in your situation I understand.

Minor stroke back in Jan. Review later today, shall see what the pills have done.

 

[Lowland1]

The GPs practice my cousin worked for made a £100,000 profit on its pharmacy obviously it wouldn’t make so much if it handed out diet sheets rather than handing out pills like smarties

 

[DaveGrohl]

The only situation that statins work is in the cohort of men in their 50s who have previously suffered a heart attack. For everyone else there are of no benefit but come with side effect issues. There are a lot of people saying now that the beneficial effect in that cohort is down to their anti-inflammatory effects rather than anything else. They do indeed lower cholesterol but you first need to ask the question is this desireable?

CHD is being seen as a disease caused by inflammation in the arteries as has already been posted on this thread, the role of cholesterol has been misunderstood for decades thanks to Ancel Keys, but the medical profession seems to be dragging its heels in being open to new thinking. Most doctors are prone to the laziness that we are all prone to, they were told something at med school and simply accept it as true and operate on that basis. Blaming cholesterol for CHD etc is like blaming the fireman for the fire. Cholesterol is sent to the arterial plaques to repair the damage that we are doing to our arteries by our diet. The cause of this is sugar, starch and industrial vegetable oils (those high in omega 6 fatty acids). AKA processed food.

OP if you're geting stressed about your cholesterol levels I'd advise you to look into this subject but ignore the top of Google results. LDL particle size and number is important, the precise mechanism of why it is important is still very much up for debate as there are more than one theory. Your doctor won't test you for this but it makes the normal cholesterol result virtually irrelevant. Did you get values for triglycerides, HDL and LDL out of interest? Please don't take anything I've posted as advice though, please do your own research.

Edit: my first go at explaining this was poor. Cholesterol is sent to repair damage to the arterial walls. Small dense/damaged LDL gets trapped inside the endothelium of the artery wall which can lead to plaques and thus thickening of the artery wall and on to CHD. Precisely why these LDL particles get trapped is open for debate. I have seen two theories on this so far. Both theories however point the blame at dietary sugar and starchy carbs along with most of the industrial vegetable oils. Again, I am no expert, merely attempting to recount some of what I have researched.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I am sure, I read that the reason we measure cholesterol level (which in itself is meaningless, the important thing is the ratio of LDL:HDL) is because we have a cheap easy test, not because it's result means anything!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I am sure, I read that the reason we measure cholesterol level (which in itself is meaningless, the important thing is the ratio of LDL:HDL) is because we have a cheap easy test, not because it's result means anything!

There are now at least 5 types of cholesterol recognised......