Does this sound right? (Cholesterol)
For those more medically smarter than me, is this possible? Or is one of the two tests incorrect?
Sept 22nd: Total Cholesterol 204; LDL 119
January 9th: Total Cholesterol 275; LDL 191
I didn't exactly watch my diet over Xmas, but a 70 and 80 point increase in 3.5 months???? The Sept 22nd test was pretty in line with the past 2 years tests. The Doctor wanted to put me on medicine as this is the highest it's ever been, but I told him no way I was going on medicine for this. I would work on it and re-test in 3 months!!
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@LN
As an old guy with some bad genetics I watch this stuff quarterly. Did you fast before the January test? It sounds like something has distorted the results big time. Mine go up and down very little quarter to quarter. I am not a doc but I would not wait three months for another test I would get one now. Perhaps Al Truscott can give his certainly more qualified opinion than me.
No, no genetics that I know of and I've looked back at past results all the way back to 2011 (I get blood work twice a year) and the highest it's been is 226 (overall) and 119 (bad). Even if I would have eaten like total crap for those two months during the Holiday period, I wouldn't think it would be that drastic of a change?
What bothers me even more is that my doctor sees the numbers and instead of saying "wow, these might be off a little" he immediately wants to prescribe me a low dose of lipotor (Sp?). I've been going to him for right at 3 years now so that's really a little bothersome to me.
And btw, I'm 40 and I am overweight at 6' 230 pds, but I'm obviously extremely active.
Yes, I fasted......on genetics I was just saying none in my family that I know of to bring up why it shot up that quickly.
But to answer your specific question, yes it is absolutely possible for it to move very quickly, but for me that takes a change in diet. And it can be managed quite easily with diet (not drugs) if you choose to. Considering that you're training with EN, I think it's pretty safe to say you already have the exercise side of the equation pretty well taken care of.
I would add one other thing. While not giving the OK to consume fatty/cholesterol rich foods, dietary changes involving a reduced intake of refined foods (sugar and flour) and/or potential food sensitivities (gluten and dairy being the top of the list),oftentimes have a bigger impact than reducing cholesterol rich foods. This may seem counterintuitive but I'll point out that because cholesterol is needed by the body (it's the building block of most hormones), our liver regulates it's levels (ie...the less we eat the more it produces, the more we eat the less it produces). Therefore, things that screw up good liver function....like high intake of refined foods and/or foods you could be sensitive to....will raise cholesterol levels as much, or more that ingesting cholesterol rich foods. This is why John W. got the results he did with the dietary changes he made.
Now the second part of the equation is to start looking for a new GP. The more I think of it the more it really pisses me off. I've been going to the same guy for 4 years and my cholesterol has been +/- 10 pts in either direction from 215 overall consistently (tested every 6 months). Today his first response (actually his nurses that called me) was to put me on a drug to bring it down. I guess that's what society has gone to. I'm not knocking prescriptions as I'm on 2 permanent ones, but I worked on the issue to try and resolve it before I was placed on them. Now it's just a toss em a drug to take care of it!
It is almost all about your diet. John's posts say a lot about how fast things can change. For me it was wayyy too much sugar in my diet that caused me to wind up with Type II DM. If you can transition your diet to have more raw vegetables, nuts, moderate amounts of healthy fats (olive oil, coconut oil) and cut out sugars you will likely come out healthier and not needing statins. You already workout so your body is primed to respond well to those changes. When I tried to make the change abruptly those first few weeks were a fukcing nightmare but I dropped over 50 pounds, stabilized my blood sugar and corrected my blood lipid profile within the first few months.
Overall, if you can cut back sugar, fructose in particular, your cholesterol levels and fat stores will decline. Excess sugar actually gets quickly converted into fat and cholesterol, starting with the acetate molecule as the basic building block (acetyl CoA). Having plenty of cholesterol is critical for the function of every cell-type in the body and that is a major reason eukaryotic organisms have a well-developed pathway for making it. Cholesterol is an integral membrane component that affects membrane fluidity. Neurons, secretory cells and muscle cells all function in coordination with proper membrane fluidity, a primary determinant of ion channel, pump and receptor behavior. Cholesterol is not a bad thing. Disordered cholesterol metabolism is - and just reducing it with statins is not the answer.
I will admit that the statin drugs (as a class) do what they do. Usually a mediocre job but yes, they (to varying degrees depending on the drug) lower the blood lipids. You're right to question whether the difference they make is worth it. The long-touted correlation between lowering cholesterol numbers and preventing arterial plaque problems is no longer quite so clear. I scanned Google Scholar for some citations but I didn't do a full on search. I mostly found old articles that were supportive. Not much from the past 10 years though.
If you read the articles from the early 90's these things are strongly supported. However, we now know the story isn't that simple. There are genetic differences change the response to these drugs. The patient's overall oxidative/inflammatory status can make a difference (C-reactive protein, homocysteine metabolism, etc.). The patient's blood sugar control and/or insulin resistance status has a big influence on whether they have an overall tendency to convert food into fat stores or have a metabolism that mobilizes fat stores for fuel.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa042000
This recent study indicates that if you're going to treat with statins there should be no pussyfooting around. Go big or go home with mediocre results. Just hope the patient can handle it.
http://www.cenegenicsfoundation.org...AURORA.pdf
This commentary discusses the disconnect between whatever benefits the statins confer to the 'general patient pouplation' and those undergoing renal dialysis. Definitely a skeptical assessment.
When you look at the whole picture of heart function, not just coronary artery being clogged or not, there is some evidence that the muscle damage statins are known for could be harmful to the heart muscle itself.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20027659
Now, if you want to read some virulently dissenting opinion, check out some of the stuff guys like Mercola and his associates say about statin drugs.
http://search.mercola.com/search/pa...x?k=statin
To look at those headlines, you'd think statins are actually surplus lead paint the manufacturers have been trying to get rid of these past decades. That said, I do know that some of the things cited in those articles are true.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...ealth.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...ction.aspx
Note: This link is also de rigeur for some perspective. For example, he's not a fan of vaccinations either. Some people completely write Mercola off as a quack only interested in selling his own overpriced products.
http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/mercola.html
I didn't even start to go into the bad things statins do by disrupting the HMG-CoA Reductase enzyme. Having low cholesterol is also a bad thing. But then there are the side effects they cause that aren't related to slowing cholesterol synthesis.
If you're taking statin drugs, you're more at risk of oxidative stress in your tissues. In fact, it is kind of a vicious circle in that independent of your cholesterol levels, the extent to which all the different lipoproteins in your blood are oxidized is correlated well with blood vessel and muscle damage. Keeping your oxidative stress lower helps keep lipoproteins less likely to precipitate into plaques regardless of their type. Plus, new info is coming out about the different sizes of LDL molecules being important.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16050955 That abstract is kinda dense but it does refer to oxidized LDL as a recognized factor in screwing with microcirculation.
I take a supplement you may have heard about, CoQ10 (Coenzyme Q 10). Actually, the reduced form (ubiquinol) is better and it is available OTC at a place like GNC. Neither of these is cheap but if you're taking statins, these are good protectants against oxidative metabolic by products. I don't take statins myself but I take ubiquinol because of all the hard training I do. It helps the recovery process and I have noticed a difference since I began to take it. Just because I have gotten myself down from active Type II diabetes that doesn't mean the underlying processes have stopped completely and I'm turning 50 this year. Both my parents found themselves in serious DM trouble by this time in their lives.
John, we should really get together and do some training. We could practically throw a tennis ball and hit each other's driveway but we never meet up.
One more thing Lance, I'd venture a guess that 90%+ of 'reputable' doctors would say the exact same thing. I once had a doctor friend advocating that since statins are SO effective that they should be put into the water supply like fluoride for the benefit of the general population... When I told my current doctor I was on a GF diet and that is what got my cholesterol down she smiled politely and told me that the GF diet was just a fad and doesn't really do much for people that do not have celiac disease. The "heart healthy" way of eating (and the associated blood sugar swings and associated insulin response) is what is causing much of the health problems in our current society (obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc. etc. etc.) if you believe the conspiracy theories of the author of the book 'Wheat Belly' or many of the other paleo types of books out there. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle with moderation. But eating "real" foods instead of "processed" foods seems to be a good start and a common thread in most of the "fads" out there right now. Some say the problem is meat, others say dairy, others say wheat, others say sugar, and so on and so on. However, if you read a label and know what every single thing on it actually is, it's probably a good start. That's why I have migrated to salads, vegetables, chicken breasts, salmon, fruits, nuts, etc. etc. etc...
@Peter, we'll have to get out for a ride one of the nice weather days. We have a lot of training to do before AmZof and IMMT...
I don't feel like I am on a "diet" per se. It's just "how I eat" now. I have "rules" which makes my decision process very easy when I'm deciding what to eat. And I eat "A LOT" every day. I do NOT feel like I am on a "diet".
Gotta love that, JW. A WSM to be sure.
I've scheduled an appointment with my wife's endocrinologist in a few weeks and I'm going to go see what he thinks. Too many variables in my opinion. My cholesterol shooting up as quickly as it did, my TSH has gone up over 1.0 in less than 12 months, my T levels are well under 400, I'm tired all the time etc etc. All these things add up to the something's not right feeling. Maybe it's nothing, but I'd rather have a specialist take blood work and see rather than just going with my GP's recommendation for cholesterol medication right out of the box.
Well then, that information makes it a lot more interesting. Such changes in your thyroid status can do all sorts of things. How is your diet? Do you eat 'healthy' with a lot of cruciferous vegetables? Kale? Brussels sprouts? Cauliflower? Those foods can work to suppress thyroid function. It sneaks up on you.