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Cholesterol - how to improve it?

Fitness tips, Relaxation, Mind and Body
feder1
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Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484329

Postby feder1 » March 4th, 2022, 3:21 pm

If someone is told that their cholesterol is too high and that in particular dietary changes are needed, dak how quickly things can be turned around in order to reduce the heart risk please?

For example for an older gent who is a non smoker, non drinker and pretty active? BMI less than 25.

The diet "problem" may be eating too much cheese. If that food is cut out completely, how quickly can a respectable cholesterol reading be achieved?

BullDog
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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484333

Postby BullDog » March 4th, 2022, 3:28 pm

In my case, no matter what I did with my diet, the cholesterol remained high. If you're like me, you have genes from the family predisposing you to high cholesterol. I inherited this from both parents. In my case, I have been taking tablets for around the last 7 or 8 years. Don't be disheartened if dieting changes nothing. Modern medication in my case works a treat with no side effects.

Good luck with your diet. Hopefully it will work for you.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484337

Postby Lootman » March 4th, 2022, 3:42 pm

My doctor recommended red yeast rice tablets as a natural means of reducing cholesterol. I take one tablet a day along with my other vitamins and supplements.

Otherwise as far as I know the best diet is the same as other healthy recommendations e.g. less meat and dairy, more fruit and veg etc.

ReformedCharacter
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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484339

Postby ReformedCharacter » March 4th, 2022, 3:46 pm

I can't find a reference but recall - because I have also been told that my cholesterol is too high - that diet only contributes about 20% to cholesterol levels. There is a huge amount of information available, such as:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024687/

RC

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484355

Postby bungeejumper » March 4th, 2022, 4:53 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:I can't find a reference but recall - because I have also been told that my cholesterol is too high - that diet only contributes about 20% to cholesterol levels.

Correct. For most people, it's not the cholesterol in the food you you eat, it's the cholesterol that your body creates from the fats you consume. The exceptions are those people with hereditary conditions such as familial hypercholesterolaemia. Like me. :cry: We FH people are told to avoid shellfish or organ meats like liver, and to go easy on eggs (especially goose eggs), and to eat dairy fats in moderation. (Although that recommendation is becoming less common these days. There's a feeling that dairy fats are more beneficial than previously thought in certain other ways.)

I was diagnosed with FH 26 years ago, with a total cholesterol count of 11 (that's stratospheric!), and I've been on statins ever since. I'm lucky because I seem to tolerate statins well, although I did have once a scare with a very powerful new drug (rosuvastatin) which didn't agree with me.

I find that reduced fat cheeses don't taste too bad these days (Waitrose and Tesco both do a decently tasty extra mature), and I buy cholesterol-reducing spreads like Benecol, although others without FH probably don't really need to. I hardly ever eat highly processed foods, and my wife and I get through 8 kg of fruit and veg a week, with red meat down to once a week. Fry-ups don't happen in our house. Some would consider that too much of a sacrifice! :lol: But rules are made for breaking, and birthdays and celebrations are fair reasons for suspending the diet.

For most people (those without FH), a change of diet ought to reduce your LDL cholesterol count ("bad cholesterol") within two weeks. HDL ("good" cholesterol), on the other hand, should be as high as reasonably possible, and the way to improve it is to exercise. I know, I know..... :(

Good luck!

BJ

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484368

Postby jackdaww » March 4th, 2022, 5:34 pm

.

i understand that a diet high in soluble fibre keeps cholesterol down .

eg fruit , veg , oats .

this will help avoid any possible side effects by avoiding statins.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484370

Postby scrumpyjack » March 4th, 2022, 5:43 pm

Having had heart problems, I take statins. They almost immediately halved my cholesterol levels and have had no side effects.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484373

Postby pje16 » March 4th, 2022, 5:50 pm

These days they dish out statins like smarties
I had heart issues a copuie of years ago (ok a heart attack)
My cholesterol was fine then and is now, but I'm on them and quite a few other pills (the rest I see as necessary)
"Oh we give them to anyone who has had heart attack" I was told

scrumpyjack
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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484374

Postby scrumpyjack » March 4th, 2022, 6:00 pm

pje16 wrote:These days they dish out statins like smarties
I had heart issues a copuie of years ago (ok a heart attack)
My cholesterol was fine then and is now, but I'm on them and quite a few other pills (the rest I see as necessary)
"Oh we give them to anyone who has had heart attack" I was told


Sadly they haven't given me any smarties :D

bungeejumper
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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484377

Postby bungeejumper » March 4th, 2022, 6:16 pm

Okay, three things that need remembering.

First, you need cholesterol. It helps you digest your food, and it keeps your skin and your nervous system healthy. So it's a bit misleading to say the less, the better.

Second, as noted above, there are "good" and "bad" cholesterols (HDL and LDL respectively.) If you've only got one number from a cholesterol test, it's the "total cholesterol", and actually your doctor is more interested in the ratio between the good and bad sorts than anything else. That said, your doc would rather your total cholesterol was below five, and below four if possible. Below three, and other bad things can start happening. :?

Third, is cholesterol a fat? Sort of - it's a near relation. But as far as dietary fats are concerned, the ones to reduce are saturated fats - polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats are OK. Avoid the dreaded trans fats, which are made by blending fats with water, and which are used in some margarines. Being transphobic is nothing new, honestly. ;)

BJ

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484449

Postby jackdaww » March 5th, 2022, 7:29 am

bungeejumper wrote:Okay, three things that need remembering.

First, you need cholesterol. It helps you digest your food, and it keeps your skin and your nervous system healthy. So it's a bit misleading to say the less, the better.

Second, as noted above, there are "good" and "bad" cholesterols (HDL and LDL respectively.) If you've only got one number from a cholesterol test, it's the "total cholesterol", and actually your doctor is more interested in the ratio between the good and bad sorts than anything else. That said, your doc would rather your total cholesterol was below five, and below four if possible. Below three, and other bad things can start happening. :?

Third, is cholesterol a fat? Sort of - it's a near relation. But as far as dietary fats are concerned, the ones to reduce are saturated fats - polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats are OK. Avoid the dreaded trans fats, which are made by blending fats with water, and which are used in some margarines. Being transphobic is nothing new, honestly. ;)

BJ



==============================

my cholesterol is around 6 , and my GP no longer pesters me to take statins .

:D

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484453

Postby scrumpyjack » March 5th, 2022, 8:06 am

Mine was 5.4
On taking statins it went down to 2.7

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484485

Postby redsturgeon » March 5th, 2022, 10:32 am

My father had a cholesterol level over 10 for much of his life, from whenever they started measuring these things, mine has always stubbornly remained at around 6.

My father died recently, he was 89, it was not the high cholesterol level that killed him.

John

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484601

Postby MrFoolish » March 5th, 2022, 9:13 pm

The evidence against cholesterol is actually very contentious. The medical professsion originally got paranoid about it because it's seen at the site of blocked arteries. But more recent evidence suggests that the root problem is inflamation and damage to the arterial walls, and the cholesterol present is actually the body's attempt to patch it. This inflamation is more likely to be caused by processed foods and refined carbs (sugars) rather than fats.

It is interesting to ask yourself why most cholesterol in your body is actually made by the body rather than coming from food. If it is so bad for us, this would seem to be a strange evolutionary mistake.

DYOR. There's a lot of interesting stuff on the web about it, from people with excellent medical credentials.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484637

Postby bungeejumper » March 6th, 2022, 9:13 am

MrFoolish wrote:The evidence against cholesterol is actually very contentious. The medical professsion originally got paranoid about it because it's seen at the site of blocked arteries. But more recent evidence suggests that the root problem is inflamation and damage to the arterial walls, and the cholesterol present is actually the body's attempt to patch it. This inflamation is more likely to be caused by processed foods and refined carbs (sugars) rather than fats.

I'd always understood that it was a combination of the two. The damage to the artery walls made them more jagged and uneven, and then the cholesterol had a better surface to stick itself to?
It is interesting to ask yourself why most cholesterol in your body is actually made by the body rather than coming from food. If it is so bad for us, this would seem to be a strange evolutionary mistake.

Not disagreeing with you - the science of statins has always been rather foggy, and they've undoubtedly been over-prescribed by family doctors who found that it was safer to dish them out willy-nilly. But it's also interesting to wonder why so many apparently healthy people used to mysteriously drop dead at forty or fifty in "the good old days" of the 1940s and 1950s, when starch and saturated fats featured so strongly in the national diet?

And why the sudden-death problem receded so significantly once people started eating less saturated fat and exercising more? And again after statins came on the scene in the 1980s? ;)

BJ

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484639

Postby MrFoolish » March 6th, 2022, 9:32 am

bungeejumper wrote:But it's also interesting to wonder why so many apparently healthy people used to mysteriously drop dead at forty or fifty in "the good old days" of the 1940s and 1950s, when starch and saturated fats featured so strongly in the national diet?

And why the sudden-death problem receded so significantly once people started eating less saturated fat and exercising more? And again after statins came on the scene in the 1980s? ;)

BJ


I have seen a chart showing that since the 1950s, the amount of fat in diets has progressively reduced (everything is "low fat" these days) but the amount of heart disease has got worse.

People are stuffing themselves with a lot more pasta, rice, crisps, cereals, fruit juice, smoothies - all highly refined carbs. This is where the problems are coming from.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484645

Postby bungeejumper » March 6th, 2022, 9:54 am

MrFoolish wrote:I have seen a chart showing that since the 1950s, the amount of fat in diets has progressively reduced (everything is "low fat" these days) but the amount of heart disease has got worse.

It certainly did get worse during the sixties, when cheap sugars and junk food proliferated, but rates have been dropping quite significantly since the 1980s, especially among the under-65s. (The oldies have been catching up on the steep downward trend since 2000.)

Take a look at the chart on the third page of this 2014 report: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(14)00354-4/pdf. (Sorry, it's a dicky link because of parentheses. You might have to adjust it s you enter it into your browser.)
The largest decrease in acute myocardial infarction hospitalizations was in patients younger than 65 years. The rate
decreased from 53 per 10,000 in 1970 to 26 in 2010: a 51% decrease. In patients 65 years and older, this rate decreased from 122 in 1970 to 99 in 2010: a 19% relative decrease.8

It's quite a careful report, which acknowledges that some data samples are fairly small and that there are dangers in stitching together the findings from different studies. But the overall downward trend would seem to be significant.

But not as striking as the results from studies of young US soldiers who had died mostly from combat injuries in two wars. (Bolds are mine.)
In the smaller Vietnam War autopsy study (1968-1978),45% of 105 American casualties had evidence of coronary atherosclerosis.11 Five percent were judged to have severe disease.

In contrast, postmortem examination of 3832 American casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (2000-2011) demonstrated evidence of coronary atherosclerosis in only 8.5%, and severe disease (>50% obstruction) in only 2.3% of these young Americans.

Seems to me that that decline in juvenile atherosclerosis didn't happen because people's genes had changed. It happened because they were taking better care of themselves. ;)

BJ

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484646

Postby MrFoolish » March 6th, 2022, 10:01 am

There are also several people who are experimenting on themselves (so-called N=1 experiments) by alternately doing a few weeks on a low fat diet and a few weeks on a high fat diet, and taking daily blood tests. It has been a common finding that the low fat diets have made cholesterol readings go higher.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484648

Postby MrFoolish » March 6th, 2022, 10:09 am

Re. the Vietnam war, I would have thought those casualties would have included a lot of unfit conscripts and a lot more men that smoked compared to more recent wars.

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Re: Cholesterol - how to improve it?

#484741

Postby bluedonkey » March 6th, 2022, 6:48 pm

To combat moderately high cholesterol, I've started regularly eating porridge oats, pistachios and tinned sardines. Not all in the same bowl! No idea if this has worked for me as I've not had a test since. By the way, the result produced by the NHS algorithm was that the cholesterol reading increase my chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years from the normal healthy standard for my age of 11.2% to ... 11.8%. Hmmm.


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