Cholesterol

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Helen, I'm with you totally there - it's very difficult to know whether you are getting good advice or not. I was just like you - no pills at all for 49 years, then suddenly I was on 11 different ones every day. I've gradually whittled that down to 3 - aspirin, statins and a blood pressure pill. But I've been reading stuff about the aspirin and statins for over a year now and still can't decide whether I should or shouldn't be taking them.

I know that some of the posters here have found research and studies that say they don't do you any good, but I also find it impossible to believe that the entire medical establishment is completely erroneous in prescribing them. If the research against them was irrefutable then they wouldn't prescribe them, surely?

So, not much help I'm afraid. What I will say is that I have now got used to taking them and don't suffer the side-effects that people talk about, so that aspect did become easier for me. I'm just hoping that they are doing me more good than harm!😱
 
Northerner said:
What I will say is that I have now got used to taking them and don't suffer the side-effects that people talk about,
Click to expand...

Thanks for your speedy reply Northerner!! If it's not too personal, may I ask if you'd 'fill me in' on the possible side effects (other than the memory thing) ? That might help in making my decision!!

Cheers.

xx
 
Helen,

They started out by thinking:
High total cholesterol gives you a greater chance of heart disease

Then they did some more research and decided:
Cholesterol comprises HDL, LDL and Triglicerides. High LDL gives you a greater chance of heart disease

Then they did some more research and concluded:
High levels of small-particle LDL gives you a greater chance of heart disease.

And that's the point we've reached so far.

So taking action against cholesterol based on the total cholesterol number is a bit out of date, as you can see.

The way to estimate the level of small-particle LDL is to take the trigs and divide by HDL. The target is under 1.3. So if you had trigs of 1.2 and HDL of 1.0 you would be fine (1.2/1.0 = 1.2). Lower trigs and higher HDL are better since there will be less small-particle LDL.

Statins reduce the amount of LDL generally being produced. This may sound good at first glance, but you have to remember that LDL performs some vital functions. Smokers for instance have raised LDL levels - but thats in order to repair the damage from smoking. LDL is also essential for brain function and many other functions in the body.

Low cholesterol, particularly low LDL is associated with higher death rates.

So if you were to have very high LDL levels then statins may be a good idea. If the breakdown of your cholesterol is ok however, then it may do more harm than good. Statins have also been shown to cause weakness in the heart because of the interaction with co-enzyme Q10. (taking expensive Q10 supplements doesn't actually help).

So the question you need to be asking really is what the breakdown of your cholesterol is. Without knowing that, statins may be shooting at the wrong target entirely.

HDL can be raised by eating more fish, nuts and other "good" fats.

Trigs are produced in the body from carbs. So a reduction in carbs lowers the trigs level.

The most common statin side effect appears to be muscle pain. There are also a lot of questions at the moment about their effect on memory. As Dodger mentioned, they have not been demonstrated to reduce the chances of heart problems - which is odd since they have been used for over 10 years.

On the subject of kidneys - the class of drug the nurse is talking about is ACE inhibitors I think. These are nothing to be worried about. High BGs cause damage to small blood vessels such as those in the kidneys. ACE inhibitors help to prevent damage to these blood vessels in the long term. Side effects are rare and the most common is a dry cough, at which point you can switch to another ACE inhibitor or a similar drug. The ACE inhibitors all end with ~pril such as Ramipril or Enalopril.

So the kidney thing is about long term protection, not dealing with an actual problem right now. I can't see any reason not to take em.

Hope that helps.

Note to Northerner - aspirin only helps when people have already had a heart attack or stroke. If not then they provide no benefit whatsoever and use of aspirin risks irritation or damage to the stomach lining. My GP took all his diabetic patients off aspirin some time ago, not long after the research demonstrating this was published.
 
Thats really helpful VBH - thank you. I'm getting my results on Monday and want to stop taking the statins as I'm sure they are contributing at least to pains I have in my left arm! Once I get the breakdown of my HDL/LDL/Trigs I can then make an informed decision.
 
Thanks very much VBH - I think I actually understood that !!

xx
 
Thanks VBH. It does sound by all accounts that I shouldn't be taking the aspirin or statin. My last total cholesterol was 2.4, which I'm thinking means that I have low amounts of good coupled with low amounts of the still-necessary 'bad'. As for the aspirin, they put me on it originally because they thought I'd had a heart attack in hospital, but three months later decided it was myocarditis. I asked the GP about it and she said that the heart specialist at the hospital had advised I keep taking it because an angiogram had shown 'slight furring' on one of my arteries - probably from 20 years of smoking.

Gah! I suppose what I really need is a fasting blood test so they can tell me the component parts of my cholesterol. I have my 6-monthly appointment in October, so might try and get one done for that.
 
Just to add to VBHs post

There is only one cholesterol and it is ferried in bloodstream (along with other things like fats/triglycerides) by the following spherical lipoproteins:

VLDL: Very-Low-Density Lipoproteins. It is this that is measured for your triglyceride level
LDL: Low-Density Lipoproteins. This is difficult to measure directly (needs an ultracentrifuge) and so is estimated using the Friedewald formula
IDL: Intermediate-Density Lipoproteins
HDL: High-Density Lipoproteins. This is a scavenger lipoprotein it mops up cholesterol and returns it to the liver for re-use.
Lp(a): Lipoprotein a. Very like LDL except for the apolipoprotein(a) protein.

The three most important are: VLDL, LDL and HDL. LDL cholesterol carries most of the circulating cholesterol. Given the foregoing, why did we evolve to recycle cholesterol and not to excrete it? Surely we would not do this if our cholesterol levels were too high. It is much more logical that our cholesterol is at a level that the body needs it to be. Adopting a “one size fits all” level and using powerful drugs (Statins) to try and achieve it is crackers, but it makes billions of dollars for “Big Pharma”

Regards Dodger
 
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Thank you VBH and Dodger :D Informative and interesting posts yet again :D
 
Thanks for all the explanations. Such a lot to take in !

xx
 
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