I had my first officials "diabetes consultation" with the DN today. (For some reason it took two years to get to this point, after moving from the USA to UK two years ago. I suspect this is because my HbA1c has never been found to be high by the NHS: by the time I moved here it was under control using diet and exercise.)
Anyway she congratulated me on keeping good control of my A1c (37, as measured two weeks ago) but said the test also showed my cholesterol is high. Serum cholesterol was 6.5, serum HDL was 1.8, and the ratio is 3.6. She consulted the duty GP and gave me a prescription for statins.
At this point I gently pushed back, saying that I would much prefer to try diet and lifestyle changes first. My argument was that if I start taking the statins immediately, I will never know whether non-drug alternatives could do the trick on their own.
The nurse said that the recommendation is for cholesterol to be 5 or below, and for anyone who has been diagnosed with diabetes, 4 or below. She said that because my cholesterol is high, I am at higher risk of a cardio-vascular event.
I then asked her to check what my cholesterol was, the last time it had been checked. This was 15 months ago (at the time of my NHS "MoT") and at that time the numbers were almost exactly the same as they are now. At the time, the nurse casually mentioned that the numbers were high but took no further action.
Today I told the diabetes nurse it looks like I have been living with high cholesterol for at least 15 months, so I don't personally have a problem with taking a few extra weeks during which I can try to use diet-only to bring the number down. At this point she actually agreed with me and gave me three months to get the number down without drugs. We will re-assess at the end of April. (She said I could keep the prescription because it is valid for 6 months!)
So: What is the best way to bring the number down? Also (playing devil's advocate) how much does it really matter?