I am 47, have put weight on over the last 5 years and cholesterol slipped upwards from 3 to 7 in that time. 5'8" + 15 stone.Used to be fit!

[MiloandTikka]

My father and his two brothers all died of heart attacks in their late 50's as did their father. I am now experiencing chest pains relieved by Burps! occasional pains across top of chest and in tops of arms...(sometimes left sometimes right). Have experienced several times my jaw and neck spasming and freezing.... is this heart disease or indigestion?

[Mike262]

Go and see your GP as soon as possible, ask him to carry out an ECG.

Your need to be on low dose aspirin & a statin to reduce your cholesterol.

Good luck

[Withattitude]

I agree. Go see your GP as soon as possible, better to check this out. Hope all is well.

[MikePollard]

Certainly you need to be checked out, but perhaps rather than going down the medication route a change of lifestyle is indicated.

Your weight puts you in the obese category, but you don't need me to to tell you that. Not only are you at risk of heart disease, but type two diabetes is a major risk factor as well.

Dr Mark Hyman gave a TED talk last week:

drhyman.com/blog/2012/04/20...

One snippet of the transcript jumped out of the page at me:

"It is food – we now know that food is information, not just calories, and that it can upgrade your biologic software. The majority of chronic disease is primarily a food borne illness. We ate ourselves into this problem and we have to eat ourselves out of it.

High cholesterol is not a statin deficiency, and diabetes is not an Avandia deficiency. It is not doing the same things better. What we are doing is not really working. It is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic".

Diets don't work, neither does following the standard mantra of '...eat healthy whole grains...', '...butter, cheese etc is artery clogging...'

Excess carbohydrate consumption especially in the form of sugar (number one) and refined carbohydrate is killing millions of us. What we are being told is not working and the health of nations is plummeting.

Start doing some research. Really dig around the internet and make up your own mind. Heres a good start:

dietdoctor.com/lchf

[patch14 in reply to MikePollard]

Hello Offshoretinker, I SO agree about diet. I have always had this thought that statins, particularly in the USA, have been used as a means of lowering cholesterol (mind you, there is also the thought that cholesterol is NOT the villain we have been led to believe) without having to put in the effort of changing the lifestyle.

I have found through changing my diet and following a dairy free, yeast free one (this due to intolerances NOT fads) I have inadvertently lowered my LDL and raised my HDL, lost 7lbs and feel "well".

I do have to watch my sugar intake as without the "perks" of an occasional chocolate bar or choccie biccie, (both nos nos on my new regime) I nibble sweeties, high in sugar.

I cook a lot more, and bake my own cakes, etc Also, EXERCISE. I don't mean sweating hours in the gym. WALK. An hour a day, good pace, (two half hours a day, one in the am and one in the pm) before work and after and you can keep as fit as a butcher's dog! I will be 60 next year and feel better now than I did when I was 30.

[Withattitude in reply to patch14]

That's brilliant - and gives me hope!

[2squirrels]

Go to your Doctor and it checked out asap. It's better to be safe than sorry.

[2squirrels]

If you are 5' 8" and 15 stone you obviously overweight, is it a life style change where you have stopped excercising and changed you diet. Both fit with higher cholestrolrol and are linked to heart attacks but only your Doctor can do the relevant tests.

[MikePollard]

Here is another link with easy to understand information - Annika Dahlqvist.

blogg.passagen.se/dahlqvist...

This lady's credentials are impeccable. She is the person who upset the medical establishment in Sweden by advocating a diet rich in saturated fat/low in carbohydrates. She had a major hiatus and was vilified. However, and to their credit, the powers that be examined the science and found it sound - thus when the information got out to the general public it started the LCHF movement to return us to our ancestral foods - so much so that it caused a butter shortage in Sweden, Norway and Finland:

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn...

Best of luck in your journey!

[Aliwally]

I agree with the comments to get yourself checked. I also sympathise with the weight. When I was first diagnosed with high cholesterol (8.9) it scared me into losing over two stone. Over the past year or so I have become more complacent and started nibbling again, result extra half a stone and glucose gone up in tandem.

Determined to lose extra weight again and get sugar back to normal range. Weight loss did reduce triglycerides but not LDL as have inherited condition. Good luck.

[silken]

hi

Don't want to alarm you but it

sounds like you could have a family history of heart disease. You need to see your gp as soon as possible.

Don't ignore or self treat indigestion or chest/ jaw pain it could be a sign of something serious.

good luck .

[patch14]

NEVER SUFFER IN SILENCE WITH PAIN SUCH AS THIS. IF IT IS INDIGESTION, SOBEIT, THE DR WON'T MIND. HE COULD ADVISE ON DIET.BUT DON'T PUT OFF AN APPOINTMENT. GO GO GO!!!!