Cholesterol levels

Broken Hope said:
People should read this, it's actually backed up by facts and published papers.

http://chriskresser.com/the-most-important-thing-you-probably-dont-know-about-cholesterol
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http://chriskresser.com/clinic/about

"My name is Chris Kresser, and I’m a licensed acupuncturist and the author of The Healthy Skeptic. I’ve been interested in health and wellness since I was a kid. My high school basketball coach had our whole team on a special diet, and while most of my teammates couldn’t stand it, I actually loved the way I felt when I ate healthy food.

I did my undergraduate work at UC Berkeley. There I was introduced to Eastern spirituality and a wide range of health modalities and practices, from nutrition to meditation to tai qi to kundalini yoga to massage."

/facepalm
 
Freefaller said:
Cholesterol is overly berated.

Too low cholesterol is bad for you.
But too high cholesterol is your body's protection system in place trying to protect the arterial walls and arterial structures. If left at too high a level it will then have very serious health implications.

Generally the whole cholesterol issue is based on Big Pharma making money from statins (which are very bad for you). They've integrated themselves into to society so deeply (with the help of GPs being misled and thus spreading the myth) that it will take many many years to dispel it.

It doesn't mean you should ignore choleesterol levels but just know the real facts. Also, too high cholesterol levels can be easily lowered quite fast to a safe and healthy level by eating & drinking healthily.

I recently bought a couple of books:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

From this chap - I've got dozens of nutrition and health books as I like to get a broad picture/idea/knowledge. I can't recommend to anyone enough about reading a bit more about nutrition and on how our bodies function.
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Hey wait a second. How are statins bad for you? I had a blood test done recently because I'm diabetic and they detected cholesterol of 5.5. The nurse who gave me the results suggested I go on statins and I agreed because she said there were no side effects. What gives?
 
SlyReaper said:
Hey wait a second. How are statins bad for you? I had a blood test done recently because I'm diabetic and they detected cholesterol of 5.5. The nurse who gave me the results suggested I go on statins and I agreed because she said there were no side effects. What gives?
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She lies, there is no drug without side effects.
However, many people have no side effects from taking statins and a few people have unpleasant and intolerable side effects.

You need to be aware of any potential side effects so you can report them to your GP. Your nurse is failing you if she does not tell you this.
 
Jolteh said:
http://chriskresser.com/clinic/about

"My name is Chris Kresser, and I’m a licensed acupuncturist and the author of The Healthy Skeptic. I’ve been interested in health and wellness since I was a kid. My high school basketball coach had our whole team on a special diet, and while most of my teammates couldn’t stand it, I actually loved the way I felt when I ate healthy food.

I did my undergraduate work at UC Berkeley. There I was introduced to Eastern spirituality and a wide range of health modalities and practices, from nutrition to meditation to tai qi to kundalini yoga to massage."

/facepalm
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Guessing you didn't read it then, he links to actual published papers to back up his statements. Don't you find it odd since the so called experts stated we should be on high carb, low fat diets that health levels have plummeted?
 
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NO!

butter_play.gif
YES!
 
Over the last 2 years I've been a virtual cripple.
I get up out of my chair and need a few steps to get my legs working, at night when I get out of bed to go to the toilet I need a walking stick, on stage I struggle to stand up for 1hr 45 mins and at the end of a gig I literally crawl up the stairs.
Mrs Dimple made me go the Doctors 3 weeks ago and she setup loads of Xrays & blood tests and yesterday I went to get my results and was told my diabetes was controlled, my cholestorol was normal but I had got advanced arthritis in my back and hips but she couldn't explain my leg problem.
ANYWAY, the night before I'd been to my Dad's and he told me he had a bad time trying to walk and it was because of the Simvastatin pills he was on.
Mrs Dimple then said that our neighbour had the same problem but I didn't listen to her (that's normal).
I then went on Google and found 100s of hits to do with Simvastatin + aching/tired legs so I told the Doctor who then looked it up.
I've got to come off them for 3 months and see if I get my legs back but when I told my Manager she had exactly the same problem a couple of years ago and when I told the drummer in my second band he too had the same problem about 12 months ago.
I really can't tell you how much I've been suffering and how worried I've been that I might end up in a wheelchair.
Another side effect is cramp and it also gives me cramps in my hands and last night on stage I was doing a couple of songs while fighting it.
Also over the same time period it's been taking me longer to get jiggy so hopefully that will improve or perhaps that's old age anyway (I'm going to wish I never told you that).

Why the hell do they give these drugs out when it is a common problem?

(Of course this is where some people will ask me why I didn't look at the leaflet that comes with the pills but I don't like ideas being put in my head)
 
I'm glad you've come off them. I've worked with many professionals in the health food / supplement industry and none of them have ever had a good word to say about statins. The affect on the legs, as well as the liver, is a well known and likely toxic side effect, amongst many others.

If you do go back on them, then at the very least consult your doctor and suggest that you take Co-enzyme Q10 with the drug. Failing that, and much more preferable, would be to take Red Yeast Rice and Co-Q10 will replace what the statin was designed to do without a horrendous list of side effects. Just make sure you consult your health care practitioner in case of confliction with any other drug.

If you are blood type A then your cholesterol is more likely to be higher, on average, than say a person who is type O. (Homocysteine) is a far better health diagnosis and is often referred to as 'the new cholesterol'.

Good health. :)
 
Update -
I took my last Simvastatin pill on Dec 2nd and within a few days I immediately saw/felt the difference with my legs.
It's like a miracle has happened and I've thrown my walking stick away.
I can get straight up out of a chair and continue walking without holding onto something first to get my balance and then suffer when I walk.
It's unbelievable I've suffered for 2 years just because of a pill but I didn't put 2+2 together and thought it was all to do with diabetes.
 
Is cholesterol levels something I should be worried about at 22?

I've been eating and drinking what I want for a few years now, so kinda wary about seeing the damage. :D
 
Man vs Food, 'nuff said - Love the show but that guys choesterol must be through through the 50th floor lol
 
Mine is probably quite high based on what I eat, but I'm fit and healthy so it doesn't bother me much.
 
Working in a medical laboratory and processing a lot of cholesterol assays, I can honestly tell you I don't give a hippo's turd what my cholesterol level is. Some people are far too curious for their own good.

*Will probably die of a heart attack before the age of 30
 
Wow I actually don't believe it. Big pharma + statin conspiracy? Seriously?!!!

Statins are an incredible and life-saving drug class, with a very large number of studies showing huge mortality benefit in everything from vascular disease, stroke, ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, diabetes and chronic kidney failure. We only have about 4 classes of drugs which have proven mortality benefits in most of these conditions (primarily ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers).

The evidence for statins is overwhelming.

It is very true that statins can have some nasty side effects (e.g. muscle degeneration) in a minority of people, and some people can't tolerate the drug. But there is no conspiracy to make the NHS pay for a useless drug. The truth is the drug has proven efficacy in both relieving symptoms, and adding years and years onto your life (by preventing mortal 'vascular accidents' and slowing chronic vascular disease).

I've worked with many professionals in the health food / supplement industry and none of them have ever had a good word to say about statins. The affect on the legs, as well as the liver, is a well known and likely toxic side effect, amongst many others.
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Lol @ 'health food /supplement industry'. What about the medical + biomedical research professions, or are they all quacks + part of this conspiracy too?

Unbelievable guys, this should be locked under the 'no medical advice' rule, because some of the stuff in this thread is frankly dangerous.

(Re: cholesterol levels, the evidence relating cholesterol levels to health problems is far more tenuous, as genetics and personal metabolism play a much bigger role. But statins have a role in disease prevention far outside the envelope of pure cholesterol measurement.)

TLDR: Listen to your GP, not to the quacks in this thread.
 
My last post was a bit aggressive, but I was annoyed at some of the things which were said in the thread. I don't want to get in a long debate because I'm revising for my finals, so I'll just put some facts down here before anyone responds.

(1) Cholesterol is one of many indicators for health. Some people with outrageous cholesterol levels are healthy, some people with good cholesterol get heart attacks. It's only an indicator. Statins are cholesterol lowering, but they have many other effects on long term vascular health.

(2) Statins have proven benefits for mortality. They reduce your risk of stroke, and heart disease. For example, if you are at high risk of stroke, taking statins regularly would likely delay the stroke by a considerable amount of time. This is very important in patients with other risk factors, for example high blood pressure and diabetes.
This benefit is obviously not observable to the patient. The outcome is to keep you alive and mobile for longer. Unfortunately, some patients can't tolerate the side-effects, especially as there is no obvious immediate benefit to taking the drug.

(3) In patients with vascular disease (e.g. leg pain when walking), statins have proven symptomatic benefit. These patients are usually much happier to remain on the drug.

(4) There are side-effects. Muscle degeneration is the main one, manifesting as weakness. This doesn't happen in every patient, and when it does it's often mild. But if you have serious problems, your GP should stop the drug. Following on from what was said in (2), it's a balance of long term health and living with the side-effects. For lots of patients they'd rather be without the weakness, and that's totally fine. It's about patient choice and quality of life.

Discuss with your GP.
 
arc@css said:
Keep a sharper eye on your homocysteine. ;)
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Haha, one of the priciest routine specialist tests around! External testing, required by most laboratories as very few keep the assay around even if their platforms are capable of running it, runs at about £30 per shot. That and the fact that it's normally got some pretty specific sample preparation requirements, which means clinicians often screw it up and render the sample useless, make it a pain in the arse test that's not often authorised by labs.

Besides, the link between Hcys and cardivascular disease is correlatory only - it's a risk factor, but the mechanism is still somewhat unclear. There are many more sensible options for investigating hypertensive-associated CVD available and you should speak to your clinician if you want to learn more.
 
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