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Thread: High Cholesterol

  1. #1
    Senior Member Mr1470's Avatar
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    High Cholesterol

    Anyone got any experience of having high cholesterol despite eating a good diet (very little dietary cholesterol taken in) and no apparent family history? In particular, any experience of how you reduced it? Recent reading was really high but with low HDLs.....most strange.
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    Master ydt's Avatar
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    Nothing much to do with fitness and diet, although some foods, like lots of cheese, don't help. An old problem of mine now under control. Couldn't tolerate Statins so after medical advice from my son the doctor I had a milder drug prescribed. Send me pm Richard for details.

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    Yep.

    See an old Fellrunner about statins - 70+ runner from one of the Pennine clubs. Leave them alone unless your 'sedentary'.

    Me: 'Well Man' clinic at local surgery (lasted just a couple of months): 'Oh dear, your cholesterol is in the orange band but everything else, diet and exercise look good'. Three months after a few changes (dropped most dairy prods - bothy pack never gets smelly nowadays) when results of a 'proper test' sent: 'Your good cholesterol is even better but the bad is worse. We can put you on statins'.

    Considering that it's not so long until the Three Score and Ten: 'Get lost, Im out'.

    Same story, though, for one, lot younger, runner (who measures absolutely everything)!
    Measure the whole Surface of the Earth with our own feet. Don Quixote

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    Master
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    Cholesterol in the diet has little effect on blood cholesterol. The idea that saturated fat is "bad" is questioned by many, who now blame sugar/refined carbs - often hidden in processed foods - for obesity/type 2 diabetes/high cholesterol/metabolic syndrome. The Mediterranean diet is a good way forward - fruit/veggies/legumes/wholemeal grains/oily fish and only occasional meat. Eggs are OK, as is some dairy stuff. It may not lower your cholesterol, but it has for example been shown to be more affective than any tablet after a heart attack, including statins. If overweight then weight reduction helps - whatever diet you can stick to is the best one. Beware of "lo-fat" products, for example yoghurt - to make up for the missing fat, sugar and other rubbish is often added so that the taste/texture is acceptable.

  5. #5
    Master
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    As for statins, unless you have symptoms of vascular disease - heart attack/angina/stroke/claudication/aneurysm and so on - they are not worth taking - it has been estimated that it would need an infinite number of people to be treated to save just one life.

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    Senior Member Mr1470's Avatar
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    Thanks for all of this info. YDT, pm coming your way. Mostly, it's nice to hear other people saying "leave the statins alone". I'm very much against them.

    MikeT - I've been reading plenty about diet and cholesterol as well and had pretty much come to the conclusion that, within reasonable limits, intake of dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol levels. That's not the reason I take little in, it's primarily through choice. We don't have dairy, we don't eat meat but do eat fish once every couple of weeks and do eat some eggs. I also don't go in for those lo-fat options.

    EddieD - I'm expecting a similar thing to happen in a few months with some lifestyle changes I'm making.

    Interestingly, after completing my BG a few years ago, I stopped exercising much for a few months - life got busy with other things and my body still felt like it was recovering. I had a blood test at that time and my cholesterol was high, with high LDLs and low HDLs. I started training again, in earnest and, a few months later, had another test.....back within NHS acceptable levels!

    Thanks for the reassurance and info. I also have a local herbalist who is highly trained and whose opinions I very much trust - she's offered some initial advice and, once I get second blood test results back, i'll be seeing her for a full consultation and a herby potion. I;ll let you know how that goes
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    I should add that nuts are felt to be good for us, as are yoghurt and cheese, despite their fat content. Of all the foods we eat oily fish is one that really does us good - because of its omega 3 content - though those right at the top of the food chain - swordfish, for example - are best avoided, as they can have quite a bit of mercury in them - mackerel/salmon/trout/tuna/sardines/herrings all taste much nicer than swordfish anyway.

    Of the vegetable oils the best are olive oil and cold pressed rapeseed oil. Some of the others are highly processed, or have too much omega 6 in them - sunflower oil for example.

    Back to oily fish - ideally eaten at least twice a week!
    Last edited by Mike T; 01-02-2016 at 03:12 PM.

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    Senior Member Mr1470's Avatar
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    Thanks for the additional info MikeT, useful to know.

    Nuts - they form part of my everyday diet, a wee snack including some walnuts. That's an interesting one about yogurt and cheese though, I wouldn't have expected that and those are two foodstuffs I don't have these days since being non-dairy.

    Re fish, unfortunately it is difficult to find anything other than farmed salmon these days and I understand that this is not considered as good for us. Is that your understanding as well? And what are your thoughts on omega 3 from non-fish sources such as flaxseed?
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  9. #9
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    Even farmed fish has enough omega 3 to be well and truly worthwhile eating. The non-fish omega 3 fatty acids, though still classified as omega 3, are a different molecule from that in fish, so not as beneficial, and flaxseed oil is said by many to go off too quickly to be useful. Flaxseeds and milled flaxseed are OK, though milled it should be consumed quickly once opened and kept in the fridge.
    It does seem odd that nuts/cheese/yoghurt, once frowned on for their fat content, are now felt to be beneficial. The type of sugar in milk - lactose - is largely missing from cheese/yoghurt. Lactose is broken down into glucose plus galactose; the latter is used in animal studies to accelerate ageing! For this and many other reasons I try to avoid cow's milk, and make my own almond milk for my daily porridge.

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    Senior Member Mr1470's Avatar
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    Thanks for all of that MikeT. I didn't realise that about flaxseeds....I'll go and pop them in the fridge straight away! I'm pleased to see someone else does the homemade almond milk with their porridge! I'll definitely consider eating more fish then and, since Derby Tup taught me well, I should be able to catch a few nice pollock from the loch once we stop having 90mph winds here!
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