I’ve been offered statins as a few weeks ago my cholesterol was up to that magic number plus age 70 where they get recommended. I suggested to cardio team and GP that this may be due to a bit of over indulgence over Christmas period so it’s agreed I’ll re-test in a few months. I have eaten mainly plant based diet for many years, wholefood everything, meat just once a week max, and only rarely touch high processed foods. Also cut sugar out of my diet 2 years ago and nothing artificial. I’m told my weight is good.
So, I’ve adjusted my diet to include a lot more soy, cut right back on butter and milk, and replaced butter with benecol. Apart from increasing exercise (been a bit semi hibernation through January!) I can’t think of what else to do.
Any suggestions? I’m not afraid to take statins, but would just prefer to do this myself.
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Rainfern
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Yes, you can reduce cholesterol without statins...but be careful to replace any missing nutrients.
I was vegetarian for a few years and thought that by not eating meat I was on a healthy diet...but my cholesterol rocketed during this time from around 5.5 to 8.7mmol/L.
Decided to do the Portfolio diet and then went completely plant based and over the course of 12 months reduced the total cholesterol to 3.9. Probably all down to the complete lack of full fat dairy.
Having had some medical issues since then which, I think were probably due to missing out on some vits/minerals, I would probably not throw myself into the vegan diet quite as deeply or as quickly if I was to do it all again. I'm now mostly plant biased with some fish and low fat dairy for added omega 3s and calcium, iodine etc.
I’m honestly in no position to advise anyone on lowering their cholesterol because I have always had low cholesterol since my first test. I strongly suspect it is genetic however my habitual diet unintentionally resembles the portfolio diet. I do consume soya products and I pay no attention whatsoever to the people who fearmonger and spout myths about it. Dr David Jenkins developed the portfolio diet. If you enjoy podcasts then I recommend his interviews on The Proof with Simon Hill and on the Sigma Nutrition podcast. These podcasts are high quality, science-based and evidence-based. There’s also the Ultimate Cholesterol Lowering Plan at the Heart UK website which is more of a user-friendly version of the portfolio diet. Personally I wouldn’t go for the supplements route because there is not much quality control with supplements. They are regulated as foods, not medicines, and the dosage stated on the packaging isn’t necessarily accurate and can vary considerably from batch to batch.
Thank you Autumn. Have to say I’m finding the soy route very calming to the gut which has been inflamed since my ablation. I can’t face dairy milk even though I have used it all my life until now. And I’m not using butter so can afford a really top quality olive oil. I’m not sure I could ever give up manchego cheese entirely. I already eat a lot of nuts, so guess I’m at least part way to Portfolio diet.
I think supplements can be useful in the first instance for some conditions. Individual dietary needs are all so different. I currently take vit D and magnesium taurate as the soil on our allotment is very low on magnesium and I’ve seen what that does to our raspberry canes!
I don’t see reason to give up your manchego as it’s a fermented food with “good” bacteria, and as it’s quite expensive, the cost is a good way to “ration” the portions. 😉
The supplements I’m referring to are red rice yeast and berberine. Red rice yeast does contain the same active compound as a statin so if you are going to get the muscle symptoms that some people get on statins, you’ll probably get them with red rice yeast. The other caveat is that you’re not going to know exactly how much of the active substance a supplement contains because they are not regulated like pharmaceuticals but as foods. If you are buying an imported product online there may not be the same quality controls as exist under UK/EU regulations, which aren’t perfect and are easily flouted, but at least they exist. It’s also important to be wary that some products, especially hyped up superfood powders and exotic herbal products can be adulterated with fillers and other substances you might not want to consume.
Food fraud is a reality and there’s certainly fraud in the unregulated world of supplements. Your ordinary vitamin D supplement from the high street is going to be fine, so don’t worry and just carry on! Those little drinks from the supermarket will be safe to consume too, if you go down that route. I strongly suggest you listen to the podcasts with Dr David Jenkins. He has a solid academic background, not a YouTube personality or an “influencer”. I seriously wouldn’t recommend anything like that. No, this is the very person who developed the portfolio diet in the first place.
My experience of this has been confusing. After being told I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure, I hoped changing my diet could help get both of them down. I adopted a strict low sat fat, low salt diet, Benecol instead of butter etc, and lost 5kg. My cholesterol did come down quite quickly - but my blood pressure has actually gone up! No idea what that’s all about. It feels very unfair!
I didn’t know that, Joy, so thank you for the info. I haven’t been told much about how to take my BP, just left to get on with it at home. Our GPs don’t seem to want to see anyone these days. I’ve just seen a handy guide on the BP UK website, so I’ll try their suggestions 🤞
That is unfair, but well done lowering the cholesterol. Any big change is a stress to the body, even if we don’t feel it mentally. So maybe it’s just a temporary adjustment behind raised BP. I guess you’d be wise to get it checked out if it’s a worry. Have you tried mindfulness/meditation which is proven to reduce BP?
But those with thyroid problems taking thyroxin should not be taking soy, fluoride toothpaste or chlorine in water or lots and lots of greens. (Just some)
Losing weight by eating less can lower cholesterol. Remember 'good' can reduce the level of 'bad'.
Having had my cholesterol level at 7 since I started recording 25 years ago and having an interest in medical matters I have followed the various opinions expressed by medics etc on this subject with interest.
In summary, my belief is don't make life a misery by cutting out anything but excesses in food and don't buy commercial lowering drinks. Instead more benefit would be achieved by working on reducing inflammation in the body eg by sourcing the best balanced food diet you can buy, ideally based on how we used to eat 60+ years ago. I would also research if statins inflame the liver by blocking its capability to produce cholesterol; most doctors incl my cardiologist think they know better than the body 🤣.
I was brought up on a farm with a full fat diet, then lapsed into the era of low fat everything eg Flora margarine etc etc with regular dieting to no avail. I then woke up in the last 20 years to revert to a full fat organic grass fed diet in moderation with no diets necessary (back to my weight at 18yo) with cooking from scratch. I had arteries scanned when AF popped up 10 years ago and mine were all clear.
That’s good to hear secondtry. Low-fat products are amongst those I have avoided for years. I neither like them nor trust them!! All recent scientific thinking on this suggests the path of moderation and the importance of good fats as part of our diet. It’s only recently my cholesterol level shot up to 7 and that does coincide with some lack of moderation over the festive season!
If its any comfort, I understand the body/the liver produces around 75% of our cholesterol (no doubt for good reasons) and changing diet, without jumping from the frying pan into the fire, is not going to have a significant affect on the overall level. More info on cholestrol and much more healthy living search Weston A Price; conference in London coming up organised by the Kent chapter.
I did it with a combination of change to diet and exercise they originally put me on statins. I have a very bad reaction to them. I decided to do it myself either wide of nuts, seeds porridge, usual things cheese ion eat very occasionally 2 to 3 eggs a week Mostly chicken red meat once a week fish now again I don’t like fish that much but I was recommended by a neighbour that ground flaxseeds can have the same effect to statins so I use these as well. I don’t know whether they do but they just bought out the porridge in the morning , it’s also a matter of getting rid of any internal body cavity fat as this is where the most dangerous fattest stored an exercise will do that it will drive it out I’m now the same weight and body size. I was when I was in my early 20s and lost around 4 to 5 stone. I didn’t intend to lose that much but my weight is now just even out and I don’t miss any of the things that I no longer eat on a regular basis.
Great to hear that it can be done. I know that I must get more exercise - I think I get complacent because my weight is okay, so what you’ve said about cavity fat will motivate me to get moving. Thank you
Brazil nuts! This is well accepted, I believe. Even one of my past GPs mentioned them.
"Thanks to their heart-healthy polyunsaturated fatty acid profile, high fibre and mineral rich content, Brazil nuts have been shown to reduce total and LDL cholesterol levels (known as 'bad cholesterol'). In fact, just one serving of Brazil nuts is sufficient enough to improve lipid profiles in healthy adults.
BBC Good Food"
My cholesterol came down to within 'normal' (as per British Heart Foundation) limits but my GP still wanted to me to take statins. "There is no 'good' cholesterol" he said, which as we all know is complete rubbish. 😐
I didn’t know that about Brazil nuts - thank you! We keep a jar of them to ward off depression - they have high selenium levels which we’re low on in UK soil. (Learned this at a food and mood conference with the nutrition foundation some years ago!)
I’ve been feeling happier since my ablation and eating less of them - so will now go back to my two a day! What a superfood.
I already have oats each day for breakfast, porridge or muesli, along with dates or apricots or banana or berries. And oat pancakes sweetened with apple and oat cakes! Maybe I’m overdosing?!😂
Haha…and I forgot to mention, my wife and I go for a brisk 4km walk every morning and I also have an indoor bike and ride approx 10km twice a week. Maybe it’s that and the porridge!, I too have reduced meat intake considerably and have a Mediterranean based diet with daily almonds which I roast
Red yeast rice capsules always bring mine down to acceptable levels- guess that must be why my “slightly high” cholesterol was mentioned when I was in my 70s! Now I’m 80! I just take the red yeast capsules if a blood test shows my cholesterol is slightly up and it’s always fine by next test. With chronic fatigue I am nowhere near as active as I used to be which must contribute too.
I don’t take them all the time - just when I’m told my cholesterol is a little up- nothing much seems to help with the fatigue and apparently one of the side effects of the Flecainide which keeps my heart in order, is fatigue too! Still here at 80 and brain still active, as my success at all the current word games I do daily shows!!
I was introduced to Wordle, Quordle and Waffle by my daughter who no longer has time for them. I succeeded particularly well at Blossom today where my score was labelled “ genius”!
Not sure I want my life controlled by a fungal toxin....so I'll just continue to keep my BP, blood glucose and weight under control by eating well (low carb). My cholesterol level can do it's own thing; seems to be working....17 years since I was told 'you are killing yourself' (by the way had I started eating to get my blood sugar , BP and weight under control, which had oddly caused my cholesterol to rise.)
Rising cholesterol happens to some naturally when they lose weight and eat lower carb; if interested have a look at 'Lean mass hyper responders'
Still here, no meds. Don't ask me what my cholesterol is now; I stopped getting it tested 17 years ago, less stress !
The 'lone' AF thing was unexpected but it did crack off shortly after I had a triple vax for an expedition I was due to go on. Now that's sorted (after 4 catheter procedures) and 3 years NSR I'm back to no meds again.
Great to hear localad. I’m back on track with a healthy diet so won’t really know if the cholesterol rise was due to seasonal over indulgence for another month or two!
The soy might well put your cholesterol up as it can slow your thyroid and high cholesterol often goes along with hypothyroidism. Personally I think unfermented soy is poison. Most statins are now off patent and cost very little so for the drug companies to continue to profit from them they need lots of people to be taking them. Hence the constant pressure .
That will be interesting to see. I have only just begun my tofu and soy milk adventures so I’ll keep you posted. My starting point is 7. Years ago we stopped all things soy but I think more research has been done since and both Zoe and Toronto University have quite good credentials. I shall investigate the thyroid link as my husband is quite borderline low and I don’t want to poison him!
My cholesterol was above 7 about a year ago. My TSH had gone up to above range. Doc told me to up my thyroid meds a bit. TSH came down to within range but still a bit high and cholesterol came down to just above 6. Doctor never suggested statins probably because he knows I would not take them. They have never been shown to improve longevity in elderly women. Epidemiological studies done in Scandinavia some years ago show that elderly women with higher cholesterol live longer and have less disease including cardiovascular disease than those with cholesterol in the so called desirable range. Our bodies produce cholesterol in response to inflammation. Overindulging over the festive season probably causes inflammation. I would want to investigate if the people behind this high soy diet get money from the soy producers who are quite powerful in America.
Thanks for this. You’ve done a lot of research and I really appreciate that. That’s so interesting about Cholesterol in older women.
I clearly need to look into the soy thing in greater depth. The past year I have been so caught up in my own health issues and that of my family it’s easy to lose touch with the bigger picture.
I would think the majority of research must be biased and tainted in various ways which is why it’s so important that studies get repeated in different situations by different researchers.
Some years ago a meta analysis of published statin trial data showed that those who took them for primary prevention ( ie those who had not had any previous cardiovascular event just raised cholesterol) benefitted on average by getting 3.5 extra DAYS of life. Given the wide range of nasty side effects they can induce from diabetes to rhabdomyolysis this is not encouraging. In fact one might describe this as marginal benefit. Also the fact that the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists Collaboration at Oxford who hold massive amounts of raw data refuse to release this data for independent analysis makes me smell a rat. But then when it comes to drugs I tend to be suspicious! My philosophy is the less the merrier.
Yes, i take a wide range of supplements including plant sterols and have done for many years , i also use benecol but recently i have re- added butter maybe twice or 3 times per week depending on the bread im eating i.e if eating wheaten bread butter is a must . i am close to 64 and have been offered statins since i was 50 but politely refused after many years of research,i just hope im making the right decisions, i think we need to be pro-active about our health, willing to make changes were we feel need be, especially in this day and age, i have never really been offered any health advice from doctors, its basically ,lets see what drug is available for that.
I have read a fair bit of research that high cholesterol can be the body's normal response to chronic inflammation. There is a growing body of evidence that if you just treat the cholesterol without the inflammation, you can still have the same risk of stroke/MI/etc. I think it would be worth a look into the research and see what you can do to lower your systemic inflammation and see how your cholesterol responds.
Yes, shall look into this. And it’s interesting because gut issues since ablation in October have caused inflammation, not just Christmas food which was actually pretty modest.
I was told by my GP last year that my cholesterol was high and that - based on the figures - I had a 40% chance of having a stroke or a heart attack in the next 10 years. He wanted me to go on statins. Not keen to do so, I took daily plant sterols and cinnamon, and a little later included red yeast rice. My last blood tests reported all cholesterol levels ("good", "bad" and triglycerides) were within the healthy normal range. Since then, I have continued with the sterols and cinnamon but have reduced the red yeast rice. I shall test every few months.
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