Posted on 11/15/2016 11:54:51 AM PST by nickcarraway
Cholesterol or Diabetes?
I’ll keep my Cholesterol (Mom and Dad died in their 80’s and ate way worse than me).
I was on statins briefly, but neither my liver nor my digestive system tolerated them.
Back before the Government-Industrial Food Complex took over, and issued the food pyramid with grains at the base. Back before the flawed study of Ansel Keyes targeted dietary fat. Back before almost everything was drenched in sugar or high fructose corn syrup.
Go back to when people ate 2 or 3 meals a day and didn't snack all the time. Back to when it was ok to skip breakfast if you weren't hungry-back before that was declared unhealthy, because breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
The best indicator of heart health is the ratio of Triglycerides to HDL (the “good” cholesterol). Triglycerides go up with the ingestion of sugar, starches, and refined foods, so stop eating that stuff to bring the TG levels down.
Also give yourself plenty of time between meals to let your insulin levels go down. Consistently high insulin levels will make you hungry and your % of body fat will go up.
HDL goes up with addition of fat-including saturated fat. Avoid margarine, vegetable oils such as corn oil, and soybean oil. Try to avoid additives/preservatives such as nitrates. Instead eat real food-Butter, Olive Oil, Cream, Whole Milk, Cheese, Bacon, Eggs, Meat, Almonds and other nuts.
Vitamin K2 is very important to get calcium into your bones, and not deposited in your blood vessels. It is a fat soluble vitamin found in the fat of animals-not the feed lot grain eating ones, but the ones that graze on grass, for example. Eggs, from pastured chickens, butter from grass fed cows. Also certain cheeses such as Gouda. Natto is the best source, but it is slimy and smells like dirty socks.
It is an essential vitamin that works in combination with several others important to healthy bones. It is quite low in most American’s food supply.
Any way that's what I did, when my cardiologist suggested statins. In one month's time, all my lipid numbers went from high to normal. I told the Dr. that I threw the USDA pyramid, and Am. Heart Assoc. diets out the window. He said whatever you are doing keep it up.
We did Viascan...no blockage in heart at all. Hubbies had been on stating for years. NO more!!
I weened my wife off of statin drugs after more than a decade of regular doctor prescribed use. They were affecting her short term memory to the point that I became alarmed. She takes a combination of beet powder and turmeric as alternatives and her short term memory issue has improved.
“I am a doctor. If I can sit down with a person for a half hour with their numbers I can explain things but to try to unburden a crowd of their many misconceptions simultaneously just ain’t possible.”
Yeah, I sold statins for years, and am quite familiar with all the statin CV outcome trials. There is just no question that statins reduce the risk of CV events. Now, there is the question of relative risk reduction vs absolute risk reduction.
Often, the absolute risk reduction over ~5 years is 1 or 2%. It may not sound like much, but with CV disease, we are too often talking about death as the first symptom. With some history of fatal heart attacks on my mother’s side, I’ll take any risk reduction I can get. I’ve been taking Crestor for several years now, and I have no side effects at all. I did have some pains on pravastatin. For those who have had issues with muscle aches on Lipitor or other statins, I’d recommend a trial on Crestor. The nice thing about Crestor is that it is effective at such low doses.
If you are prone to artery problems, statins are a Godsend.
If you are not, you are taking a chance.
I take a low-dosage and the carotid scans look good. .
If you want your HDL to go up dramatically, take Niacin.
If you want to lower Triglycerides, lower your alcohol use.
In Summary, for those who took the statin for 5 years:
Benefits in NNT
None were helped (life saved)
1 in 104 were helped (preventing heart attack)
1 in 154 were helped (preventing stroke)
1 in 100 were harmed (develop diabetes*)
1 in 10 were harmed (muscle damage)
www.thennt.com
I’ve been trying to get off of them. The genetic Zocar made me a little loopy.( My wife said she couldn’t tell the difference )
I am now taking a low dose of atorvastatin - 5mg every other day.
Next up is trying to schedule an LDL Particle Test.
There is no question of statin value post stroke\heart attack.
Dr Kendrik has written “The Great Cholesterol Con”. There are many many youtubes if him explaining why statin is poison (costly one at that).
One has to know what they are doing to actually reduce risk. Early studies were, I believe confounded by folks who should not have been treated.
Well that’s a stupid guideline. Especially with statin’s rather nasty side effects for many. There’s certainly no reason for people without cholesterol problems to risk having their muscles eaten.
My experience is limited but my patients have had very few side effects. It occurs to me that patients who could not tolerate the statins because of myalgias may not have been appropriate in the first place.
Good for you.
I was on statins for a while. My cholesterol level was 259 when I started and fell to about 220 with the statins. After taking them for a couple of years I decided they might be having unpleasant side effects, so I stopped taking them. I felt fine with no symptoms whatsoever of heart problems.
That is, until two years ago when I ended up in the hospital for two weeks with pneumonia and a minor heart attack. Tests showed blockages of up to 90% in cardiac arteries. My quadruple bypass was very successful and recovery only took the normal 10 to 12 weeks. The various scars on my chest are really quite minimal.
Now my statins have resulted in a cholesterol level of 125 and I keep my fingers crossed that further blockages will be avoided.
If you really want to avoid heart disease, choose your grandparents wisely. If they had heart disease, then you need to keep a close eye on your own condition.
I already found the solution to high cholesterol: throw out the nutritional guidelines and bring on the bacon, eggs, whole milk, real butter, fully marbled steaks. No wheat, corn, rice, or potatoes. That cut my cholesterol by more than 60%.
“One has to know what they are doing to actually reduce risk. Early studies were, I believe confounded by folks who should not have been treated.”
Well, I’m not sure that it is possible to ever completely know how statins work to reduce CV risk. In addition to LDL reductions, they do also appear to reduce inflammatory factors such as hs c-rp. Some believe the atherosclerosis is as much a function of inflammatory factors as high lipids. Early studies included both primary prevention and secondary prevention trials. Even the early studies with pravastatin demonstrated ~30% relative risk reductions, and that was with moderate LDL reductions.
Yep, you can have no appreciable symptoms and have a 90% occlusion. Also, a huge occlusion like that is not necessary to have a massive heart attack. Many heart attacks occur with lesser occlusions that do not appreciably limit blood flow until a plaque ruptures due to shear forces, leading to the formation of a thrombus of clotted blood cells that form around the plaque rupture. It all depends on one’s “clotting factor” at the time of the rupture. IMO, if you are at any level of CV risk, it makes sense to keep your blood on the thin side and keep LDL low.
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Sorry for yelling, Statins have done a real number to the males in my family. Everyone of us now has muscle problems in our legs. All linked to statin usage by our various doctors.
Didn’t need to do either. First of all, I rarely drink any alcohol, and never did. All I had to do was go back to eating real food, including butter, whole milk, increased my protein, and stopped eating high glycemic and overly refined foods.
I will mention that the body processes the fructose in sugar and high fructose corn syrup that so many foods are drenched in these days, similar to the way alcohol is processed.
Both excessive fructose intake and excessive alcohol can result in fatty liver disease.
As I said, the change in diet resulted in raising my HDL, and lowering the Triglycerides as well as normalizing total and LDL cholesterol. Didn’t need any niacin therapy either - just nutritious food.
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