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Cholesterol and Statins

I may have had a cup of tea and a slice of toast (those were the days) but nothing else, test was at 10am.
 
Mattrblue said:
I may have had a cup of tea and a slice of toast (those were the days) but nothing else, test was at 10am.
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Probably still enough to make the results kind of invalid.. if you have one next time try to water only fast for 12-14 hours beforehand to get a "clean" reading unaffected by food or drink.
 
bulkbiker said:
Probably still enough to make the results kind of invalid.. if you have one next time try to water only fast for 12-14 hours beforehand to get a "clean" reading unaffected by food or drink.
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My next one is on Tuesday. thanks. So in summary, keep doing what I am doing and continue to take the 5mg of rosuvastatin each day.
 
Mattrblue said:
So in summary, keep doing what I am doing and continue to take the 5mg of rosuvastatin each day.
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Err well I wouldn't take the pill but that's me..
But yes before the next test fast for 12-14 hours before the blood draw.
 
I can't recall which thread it was on, where someone had serious concerns about going low carb, as they had heard of, or knew of someone/people who had gone keto and ended up with block/gunged up blood vessels?

Anyway, today I received the results of my Coronary Arterial Calcium scan done a couple of weeks ago, as an element of a research study. My score was 4.2 (https://patient.info/doctor/coronary-artery-calcium-score#nav-1). Personally, after 7.5 years on low carb, with balancing fats, I'm fine with that.

Such an interesting study, and a massively comprehensive cardiac MOT. I dread to think of the cost. I know several people who have paid for the calcium scans privately, at a cost of several hundred pounds.
 

Might it have been @jonesmia ?

Interesting that there is no sex differentiation in those results..
My results sheets had different values for male and female..
Not sure it was an Agaston score though although are there different kinds?
 
bulkbiker said:
Might it have been @jonesmia ?

Interesting that there is no sex differentiation in those results..
My results sheets had different values for male and female..
Not sure it was an Agaston score though although are there different kinds?
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What was your assay scale like? To be honest, the result was only discussed with me on a 1:1 basis yesterday. I'll see more in my report (or my multiples reports!) when they come in my post-study letter next week some time.
 
AndBreathe said:
What was your assay scale like? To be honest, the result was only discussed with me on a 1:1 basis yesterday. I'll see more in my report (or my multiples reports!) when they come in my post-study letter next week some time.
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I got this.. my score was 40
 
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I just wanted to add my little story to this thread, which helped me for having read some of it before a visit to the doctor when my cholesterol results came back as a total of 8mmol and my new young doctor at the time got a panicked look on her face and began telling me that I should begin statins straight away or risk dying of a heart attack within 5 years...

At the time I'd had gestational diabetes with my 3rd child who I gave birth to at 44yo and was just managing to breastfeed. My doctor told me I should quit breastfeeding him (almost newborn) and start taking a statin, based only on my cholesterol result total being 8mmol and the LDL being 5mmol or so. That would have not only affected me but also my baby, who would have been put onto formula.

Well, I didn't want to do that lightly so I looked into other tests and just took the risk not to bother with statins. I had started eating low carb /(sometimes keto), since the end of that last pregnancy.

Sometime later that year I had a lipid subfraction test done, as well as a fasting insulin test. The small dense LDL was not in large amounts - most of my higher amount of LDL was large and buoyant (not bad), and my fasting insulin was only mildly elevated, so no fuss was made of those results.

Two HbA1c results taken not quite 2 years apart, one soon after I had my 3rd child and one just the week were both acceptable at 5.3 and 5.4%.

A new doctor I am now seeing also did a basic cholesterol test again which came back at 7.4mmol total. The LDL had dropped slightly to 4.3mmol. My trigs of 0.6 and my HDL of 2.8 mmol were the same as the last one with 8mmol as the total.
This doctor suggested I have a CAC scan (Coronary calcium score) done and if there were no problems with that, then she wouldn't recommend statins. So I had it done and my score was 1.02. Low risk. So no statins recommended from that doctor despite the higher than they like cholesterol.

Anyway, it just goes to show that if I had listened to my first doctor, who only looked at the basic cholesterol test and was freaked out by the total cholesterol and the high LDL (not taking the ratios into consideration at all), that I would have not breastfed my newborn and could have started statins which may have done unnecessary bad things to my health....

So if you've been offered statins based on cholesterol total alone, don't panic until you look at other factors.

I admit, I am not T2, not yet, and hopefully low carb will keep it that way, and I did lose 10kgs after having my last child, so those things help too. I don't know why my cholesterol is higher than average, but it seems it doesn't matter as long as you don't have calcification in your heart.

Thanks again for this thread!

Thanks really for this whole forum because that's also what lead me to low carb / keto / carnivore / paleo -type diets that really do seem to help with numerous health problems.
 
Wow! I'm going to free up time to read/study all of this tomorrow. Thank you so much x
 
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