ctpres

Need some advice on getting it DOWN. Spent spring training for century with 250 plus miles a week. Century went well and annual check-up weeks later my cholesterol was at lifetime high. I want off the statins - period. Total 210, LDL 112 and HDL 77. I must be doing something wrong. What did you do to get lower cholesterol?

bbeasley

We're all very different especially on this one. I was on statins for over 10 years and managed to get off. I believe like weight loss it's all about the diet with a tad of exercise thrown in. In my case I don't eat red meat or egg yolks ever. I eat a small amount of chicken and fish, maybe 3 servings combined per week. Lots of fruits veggies and lots of healthy fats. Walnuts and avocados are my go to fats. When I was on a traditional "low fat" diet my cholesterol and lipid profiles were terrible.

What was fun was the first month off the statins. Did my first 20 mile at 20 MPH bike ride ever, this was on flat ground with no drafting a big moment for me as I'm not fast. I also did my first sub 30 min 5K. Again I'm an old, fat, slow guy so it was a big deal for me I suffered muscle cramps every ride over 30 miles while on statins. The cramps dictated how hard I could push. Now, I haven't had a cramp since dropping the statins.

Be careful and listen to your MD. Mine took me off for a "trial" and my labs have stayed good. I'm very careful about what I eat, my motivation is the muscle cramp issue.

cafzali

Honestly, it's as much about eating the right things as exercise. Even with exercising much more than the average Joe, I still haven't been able to get off a statin yet, even though my weight has come down and I'm healthy overall. Many people will find they have to be very diligent about eating the right things to get their numbers in line.

DBA

You have a pretty high HDL. Your LDL/HDL ratio is not bad. I'm not exactly sure why you are on a statin.
That said, if those are your numbers on a statin, you may have familial hypercholesterolemia. If that's the case, coming off a statin is unlikely. If it's not the case, what's your diet like?

bikebreak

I'm not a cardiologist, but your ldl hdl ratio is not all that high fwiw. I wouldn't worry too much unless you have a history of heart issues. Have you had a heart scan to check for arterial plaque and cardiomegaly etc?

Personally, I eat extra cholesterol in the summer when I am riding a lot. eggs, steak, butter. My lipid numbers are fine and ratio is good. I do not use topical sunscreen, the extra cholesterol helps prevent sunburn. cholesterol + sunlight = vitamin D. If no free cholesterol, the sunlight burns you instead.
Maybe try skipping sunscreen.

ThermionicScott 

Umm, you're joking, right? Skin oil does have a protective effect (which is why I don't shower in the morning before riding), but it doesn't follow that your body will devote more cholesterol to this if you skip sunscreen. If you have something to back it up, I'd be interested, though.

bikebreak

No joke, but my sample size is n=1. It works for me, ymmv.
I eat extra cholesterol, get a good amount of sun without sunscreen, never get a sunburn, and have normal blood lipids. Safe to assume that sun exposure is converting extra cholesterol to vitamin D.

Here is a good article about vit D synthesis
Vitamin D is Synthesized From Cholesterol and Found in Cholesterol-Rich Foods
with the caveat that the author is pro vitamin D and pro cholesterol

Don in Austin

i would never take statins (liver poison) for those numbers. The flags on blood work are silly. Your total cholesterol is flagged because it is over 200, but that is largely because your HDL is nice and high. Look at your total heart risk. C-Reactive protein? Triglycerides? More and more enlightened members of the medical community are starting to realize that treating for cholesterol numbers is misguided: Growing doubt on statin drugs ? the problem of drug-lifestyle interaction

Don in Austin

jiggity

I have high cholesterol that the Doctor is a little worried about. Its the ratio between the HDL and LDL that should be of concern. If the HDL to LDL is greater than 4:1, it needs to be watched. If you have a high total cholesterol number, that is less important than the ratio. Mine is 4.5:1.

I switched to vegetarian about a year ago. My mistake was leaning way to heavily on protein bars when I was weight training. I was eating 2 or three of those a day. The thing I was looking for on the label was Cholesterol amount which was 0%. Where I screwed up was not looking at the Saturated Fat content. They were 25% of my RDA.

So, now I have completely eliminated those bars and really investigate the Cholesterol AND Saturated Fat content of food items. I transitioned to more fruit and I eat a big bowl of Bob's Red Mill organic rolled oats with cinnamon and honey. I've also eliminated shrimp and lobster from my diet. They are high in cholesterol.

I've also stopped weight training and moved solely to biking and have managed to drop 10 lbs. Oh yeah- I will also choose to gamble with managing high cholesterol than ever taking a statin.

ThermionicScott 

Sun exposure does indeed produce vitamin D, no one can argue that. The bad advice is to tell someone else not to wear sunscreen, with the implication that this will use up some of their extra cholesterol...

Dunbar

Triglycerides calculate out to 105 which is fine. LDL looks fine unless the OP is diabetic in which case I think they want you under 100. I agree though, it's crazy that they suggest statins with those numbers!

GeorgeBMac

Good plan!

My total cholesterol has dropped from nearly 300 on a Standard American diet to 175 (and the LDL has been nearly cut in half) on a whole food plant based diet. I had been taking cholesterol medication for nearly 20 years but the muscle weakness they caused pushed me to stress the diet and exercise that have enabled my cardiologist to discontinue the statins -- and I feel a LOT better!

Unlike the statins, a healthy lifestyle has only positive side affects.
... But it has required a lot of learning and unlearning (of old assumptions)

jiggity

Well I am very happy to report back that I have gotten my cholesterol under control. I've dropped the bad chol by 70 points and increased my good chol by 2 point. I am at 200 total! All by managing what I eat and having an active lifestyle. No drugs at all! It can be done naturally and you can enjoy it at the same time!

GeorgeBMac

First, thanks for the update!
Second, CONGRATULATIONS!

... and, in addition to lowering your cholesterol, your healthy lifestyle may also protect you from Heart Disease, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Many Cancers and a host of other things... All GOOD side affects -- unlike the statins that have only bad side affects!)
Again, Congratulations!

ThermionicScott 

Great to hear, jiggity!

jimincalif

Congrats, can you summarize what you're doing with your diet? Thanks.

jiggity

Sure. It certainly hasn’t been rocket science. Just about two years ago, I went vegetarian due to getting some raw chicken at a wedding reception. I was in the wedding so a year before that I was going to a personal trainer to bulk up a little. I was eating protein bars and drinking Gatorade like my life depended on it.

I switched jobs and my wife and I were able to car pool into work together. Feb 2014 rolls around and thinking since I’ve been a vegetarian since May, I am good to go. Nope. Cholesterol skyrocketed to 268. Went to talk to my PCP, who is a DO. She very much listens when I say I want to handle things naturally and not just get thrown a med and out the door I go. She suspected that it was the high protein/high fat bars and shakes that I had been supplementing.

Because my wife and I were carpooling and she dropped me off and picked me up I had time to kill, so I work at a university and my building is right next to a workout facility. I still lifted a few weights but I concentrated on the stationary bike since its winter in Ohio. Every day for an hour before work.

As the weather became nicer, I dropped the indoor cycling and started riding to bus stop and taking the bus in (3 miles each way). All the while I should mention that we started a service called GreenBean Delivery, which is an organic fruit and produce delivery service. Started eating out less and cooking more at home.

I really noticed the belly slowly disappearing and kept it up. We lived at about the furthest Northwest corner of the city that you can get and my wife and I both work smack dab in the center of the city. So we were able to move this past July to 2 miles north of campus. I stored away the folding bike I had for the bus rides and went and custom built an LHT.

We are at ground zero for organic farmers markets and stores where we currently live so we’ve further refined our vegetarian diets. Our backyard is on a major multiuse path which I ride to work on, back and forth to lunch at home, and then home in the evening. So I get about 8 miles cycling in a day. I am home before my wife so nightly I would walk up to the community market or the organic grocer for whatever meal I was preparing.

And that’s kinda my story. Increased my daily activity and refined my vegetarian diet. Don’t get me wrong. I drink beer. I will eat fries and pizza. But in all things, moderation.

Carbonfiberboy 

^Good job! The take-away from all these personal stories and research studies is that losing body fat and getting more exercise fixes a whole host of physical problems. I tell folks that the bike is the best doctor I ever had.

dwmckee

My total cholesterol was about the same as yours but I got it down with a non statin drug. Ask your doc about cholestyramine and welchol. These drugs are non systemic which means they do not get into the bloodstream and therefore have very few side effects. They stay in the gut and absorb bile acids. Your liver then pulls more cholesterol from your blood to replace the bile, lowering your cholesterol. Docs do not prescribe as often because they are not as powerful as statins and they do not have the big drug industry money promoting them. I think some docs get kickbacks for prescribing Statins too. But of you ask your doc about these other drugs I am sure s/he will be familiar. They are basically the same drug but one is a powder you mix with water (cheap) and one is in pill form (expensive).

I think some cardio docs also just worry about your cholesterol and do not worry about your liver (not their department) so it is up to us to ask educated questions about what the best medicines might be for each of us individually. They hate us for getting info on the internet and questioning them, but hey, because of the way they sometimes prescribe treatment this shows why we really have to...

They are quite effective for moderately high cholesterol though and have basically no side effects for most people.

headloss 

Really like the suggestion to make more meals at home... the big problem with "processed" food is that it's way too high on the sweet and the salty (not good for cholesterol concerns). Then we fall into a trap where we expect a certain level of sugars and salts and crave the excessive amounts of it. Preparing meals from scratch seems to be one of the best approaches to end this cycle of bad eating.

No clue what "organic" has to do with anything, that's just a bit of a side tangent imho.

mgwilder

Dr. Joel Fuhrman Improves Health - Lose Weight Naturally | Reverse Diabetes | Prevent Heart Disease and Cancer | Lower Cholesterol

Worked for me.

ThermionicScott 

Sounds like what soluble fiber does. The majority of us could always stand to get more of that.

dwmckee

Probably right. This stuff is basically a plastic resin that sits in your intestines and absorbs bile acids so they pass on through. Nice thing is they have none of the side effects of Statins, etc. The powdered form is dissolved in water an you drink it, kind of like plastic sand. The pill form is the same stuff but you do not have to dissolve it in water, much more expensive but more palletable!

bartolomei

Could you explain in terms of nutrients: what are you consuming more or less than before (saturated fats, cholesterol...)?

One of the best ways to lower LDL cholesterol is losing weight regardless of the diet composition.

Exercise alone, without weight loss, probably does not significantly lower LDL.

From what I've managed to found so far, high saturated fat intake in combination with low unsaturated fat and high cholesterol intake can increase LDL (but not total fat intake alone or maybe even not high saturated fat intake alone until you get enough unsaturated fat).

Rvav8r

Thirty years ago my DR. told me I was a walking heart attack and I had a total cholesterol of 426. He told me that there is no cure for bad genes and then promptly placed me on a regimen of Niacin. Apparently the no flush kind does not work. I started with 500mg twice a day for three days and then two tabs twice a day for five days. Then I moved up to 1500mg twice a day. My cholesterol fell to 150 or so and it is now about 130. My new DR,. placed me on Simvastatin a year ago because Niacin offers no protection against strokes and I have a family history of those.

WARNING! Niacin will produce a flush until you get used to it. You will feel hot and understand those hot flashes women get during menopause. Not every one will get used to the flush though.