Another Cholesterol question

[Milkyway88]

Morning All

I have just read Soaping’s post about high cholesterol and TSH. It’s interested me particularly as mine is the same and the surgery are trying to push statins on me.

Currently I’m hypo so I said I’ll decide when my Thyroid levels are optimal.

The link given by shaws explains the relationship between TSH and cholesterol.

My question is this - can anyone explain what this statement taken from the article means ?

‘It is not recommended to start treatment in those older than 65 with TSH levels below 10 mlU/L because of the risk of increased mortality with thyroid treatment in this patient population.’

[greygoose]

It doesn't mean anything except we 'don't want to treat older people so we'll just let them all die off of 'natural' causes'.

They are buying into - or perpetuating - the myth that TSH causes osteoporosis (although I don't know if that's ever killed anyone) and heart problems. Coupled with the idea that 'older people' naturally have higher TSH than younger people. Well, they do, but only by a coupld of decimal points, not by 5 or more points as they would like us to believe. And low TSH does not cause osteoprosis or heart attacks.

There is no direct link between high cholesterol and TSH. High cholesterol is caused by low T3. It's made in the liver and the liver keeps the level steady by making more when you eat less and vice versa. But, when T3 is low, the body has difficulty processing the cholesterol so it builds up in the blood. TSH, of course, follows thyroid hormone levels, so if the FT3 is low, the TSH should be high.

[penny]

I was re-reading Dr Peatfield’s book and he mentioned that elevated cholesterol used to be used as a diagnostic for hypothyroidism. I found this interesting.

I was talking with two friends who mentioned that they are on statins as a ‘preventative’, fairly young and fit, and one certainly has low FT4 and FT3; undiagnosed.

[Milkyway88 in reply to penny]

Definitely interesting! When I mentioned about the hypo link the medics weren’t interested. I didn’t think they would be as ‘there are no physical symptoms with hypothyroid’ 🤦‍♀️