4 ms·

Thank you for those links! I should have been clearer: what bugged me about my interaction with the GP was that he didn't ask about anything to do with lifesty

Thank you for those links! I should have been clearer: what bugged me about my interaction with the GP was that he didn't ask about anything to do with lifestyle/diet. When I went looking on my own - everything I seemed to find from the NHS/Heart UK suggested that cutting saturated fat was essential, leading to my conclusion that this is what the mainstream medical establishment still believes.

JeremyNT 11y ago
As somebody in the same situation (same age, otherwise healthy, high cholesterol, regular exercise) my read is that trying to influence ldl in a meaningful way through diet alone is essentially pointless. You can knock off a few points, and you can raise HDL a bit, but the likelihood of a dramatic reduction is essentially nil. Going right for the statins kind of makes sense beyond a certain point. That said, I opted out. My gp showed me the risk in the calculator mentioned above and the difference statins made was not large enough for me to justify it.
- aberridge 11y ago
  Could you define "dramatic reduction"?
  - JeremyNT 11y ago
    Based on information I found using clinical resources which I have access to via my employer (I work at a University with a medical school and have access to their tools, although I am not a medical professional) I found this useful note: > The United Kingdom Lipid Clinics Programme study of 2508 subjects found that, with diet alone, 60 percent of subjects had a mean reduction in body weight of 1.8 percent, which was associated with 5 to 7 percent reductions in serum total and LDL-C. Key thing here: when I mentioned "otherwise healthy" above that includes "not overweight and exercises." Lifestyle interventions for people with hypercholesterolemia are most effective on people who are both sedentary and overweight (or obese) who have really poor diets. None of that applies to me. The conclusion that I ultimately came to is that, if your diet isn't awful, your BMI is normal, and you exercise every now and then, there's no dietary change that's likely to benefit by more than 5%, not enough in my case to reach normal levels. This is my "gut" assessment based on personal research and I urge you to do your own research on this matter before making any decisions. To further complicate all of this and bring things back to the topic of this article: statins seem to reduce the risk of CVD through some means other than simply lowering cholesterol levels. There's a school of thought that even people with normal cholesterol who have other risk factors for CVD should be on statins. So really, the question of "should I take statins" may end up being less about cholesterol specifically, and more about overall risk of CVD. This is why in my own decision making process I opted not to pursue treatment (yet) since my overall health otherwise is sound.
- astrange 11y ago
  If your triglyceride levels are too high you're eating too many carbs and not enough fish. If they're not, there is not as much evidence you really have a problem.

JeremyNT 11y ago

As somebody in the same situation (same age, otherwise healthy, high cholesterol, regular exercise) my read is that trying to influence ldl in a meaningful way through diet alone is essentially pointless. You can knock off a few points, and you can raise HDL a bit, but the likelihood of a dramatic reduction is essentially nil. Going right for the statins kind of makes sense beyond a certain point. That said, I opted out. My gp showed me the risk in the calculator mentioned above and the difference statins made was not large enough for me to justify it.

aberridge 11y ago
Could you define "dramatic reduction"?
- JeremyNT 11y ago
  Based on information I found using clinical resources which I have access to via my employer (I work at a University with a medical school and have access to their tools, although I am not a medical professional) I found this useful note: > The United Kingdom Lipid Clinics Programme study of 2508 subjects found that, with diet alone, 60 percent of subjects had a mean reduction in body weight of 1.8 percent, which was associated with 5 to 7 percent reductions in serum total and LDL-C. Key thing here: when I mentioned "otherwise healthy" above that includes "not overweight and exercises." Lifestyle interventions for people with hypercholesterolemia are most effective on people who are both sedentary and overweight (or obese) who have really poor diets. None of that applies to me. The conclusion that I ultimately came to is that, if your diet isn't awful, your BMI is normal, and you exercise every now and then, there's no dietary change that's likely to benefit by more than 5%, not enough in my case to reach normal levels. This is my "gut" assessment based on personal research and I urge you to do your own research on this matter before making any decisions. To further complicate all of this and bring things back to the topic of this article: statins seem to reduce the risk of CVD through some means other than simply lowering cholesterol levels. There's a school of thought that even people with normal cholesterol who have other risk factors for CVD should be on statins. So really, the question of "should I take statins" may end up being less about cholesterol specifically, and more about overall risk of CVD. This is why in my own decision making process I opted not to pursue treatment (yet) since my overall health otherwise is sound.
astrange 11y ago
If your triglyceride levels are too high you're eating too many carbs and not enough fish. If they're not, there is not as much evidence you really have a problem.