Statins

[dylansmum]

Once again, after having to have an unavoidable blood test (tsh only), my GP want to reduce my levo, but reckons I should be taking statins. However I got a thyroid type email yesterday, informing us Hashimoto sufferers that a high cholesterol is normal, (minimum 5.00 to 6.20) and necessary to prevent heart attacks, it stated taking statins lowers cholesterol far to much and we are in danger of having a heart attack caused by taking them, if we have thyroid problems! Anyone else seen this

[shaws Administrator]

Your doctor is another who is misinformed and been sold the 'statins' package. Info is just recently coming out about the dangers of statins and I'll link you to Dr Kendrick's article. Maybe pass a copy to your GP.

A higher cholesterol level is fairly common in people with hypothyroidism but does reduce once diagnose and on thyroid hormones. (It is a clinical symptom - another that doctors appear ignorant about)

Dr Kendrick is brave - he says what is right and what is wrong with the profession these days.

[humanbean]

There were some good posts and links on the subject of statins and cholesterol and the thyroid on this post today : healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

I particularly liked Marz's post and this link posted by LuckyKat :

forefronthealth.com/hypothy...

[ColinK]

Not seen this, by my GP put me on statins and over 16 months or so it felt like I was slowly being poisoned and in the end I could not do more than 2 minutes of exercise without being in pain, I went back a few times and complained, by he never suggested at any time my symptoms were due to statins, I eventually read the gumpf  that comes with the pack and realised it was the tablets. I took myself off them and noticed a huge improvement in just 1 week. There is no way on this planet I'd ever touch another statin, nor would I recommend them to anyone.

[Hidden]

I would never touch statins either, they also interfere with CoQ10, the very thing that protects your heart.

[Karen09]

This is going to sound wacky but has anyone here yet heard about Brazil nuts (just four a month) being able to reduce harmful cholesterol in such a way that makes taking statins kind of ridiculous. 

I know this sounds far fetched, but take a look at a Google search where you put in the key words 'brazil nuts reduce cholesterol'.  There is a lot of indication from recent studies that brazil nuts does reduce bad cholesterol quite a bit and at least as much as statins.  

[greygoose in reply to Karen09]

There's not such thing as 'harmful' cholesterol. Cholesterol is cholesterol. It is made in the liver and the body needs it.

When you have a cholesterol blood test, they aren't measuring the actual cholesterol, they are measuring the proteins that transport the cholesterol round the body to where it's needed - the brain, damaged tissue, etc. You cannot have a good or bad transporter protein.

There are two different types, yes, because they do different jobs. Both are necessary. This business of 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol is just Big Pharma hype to scare people into taking their very lucrative statins. Be very wary of lowering your cholesterol because you will also lower your sex hormones. And that's not funny!