Cholesterol - Help please

britishpub said:

I need to brush up on my people skills

I don't think telling the DN she was "bonkers" to think my T2D was "resolved" helped me a lot.....

Click to expand...

Probably not.

grante said:

When I was first diagnosed I felt lost and didn't know what to do. Then i read Dr Cavan book and here I am 2 months later with a hba1c at 59 which is down from 102. But I find my cholesterol is messed up

Click to expand...

Look for foods containing beta-glucan as they known to help lower cholesterol levels. Both Heart UK and The British Heart Foundation have some great information and advice on lowering cholesterol levels so do check them out. Good luck and hope you see some improvements soon @grante.

@britishpub my endocrologist represcribed mine once my liver enzyme levels had decreased in output.
I couldnt tolerate it with a 220 level of enzymes (ALT) from my liver mainly caused by eating fruit.
Low carbing and no metformin reduced it to 32. Currently 72 but on huge amounts of painkillers and max metformin which is only way I can lose weight.

grante said:

Are you still on statins?

Click to expand...

I no longer take them at the moment as I feel the risks inherent in them outweigh possible benefits, but if I felt the benefit to me over rides the risks I would take them again.

When my HbA1c dropped to 38 my GP took me off Metformin I later asked him to reconsider this because of the other benefits I felt it could have after going through all the possible benefits he still refused until I said the magic words " It helps me control my weight by suppressing my apatite" He said OK I'll go with that and put me back on them at minimum dose..

I'm still waiting for the opposing camps to resolve the often stated issues.

Pro-statin says high cholesterol bad, low cholesterol good, we make money from prescribing statins (perhaps a touch of bias here?).

Anti-statin says that taking statins will not extend your life expectancy (although it may change what is on your death certificate), older you get the better high cholesterol is, we may change our minds when (if) the clinical trial data for statins is ever released into the public domain.

At the moment it seems impossible to separate good quality research results from ones which may have been influenced by the sponsors.

So you pays the NHS's money and you takes your choice.

I had bad experiences with two statins.
Currently I have high cholesterol but good BG control, a sensible weight (12 stone, six foot tall), and an active lifestyle, and normal blood pressure. Scan for aortic aneurysm in the abdomen a year or so ago seemed to show no issues and a good lining to at least one major blood vessel.

So barring an in depth and intrusive investigation of my vascular system I see no obvious evidence that my high cholesterol is causing me any problems.

I do know people with familial hypercholesterolaemia who have had blocked blood vessels, needed stents, in one case a quadruple bypass. However in those cases the problems manifested some time ago and they are of similar ages. I don't THINK I have that problem.

Bottom line; no statins for me!

Contralto said:

Dear noble,

Could you provide a link for those things beta-glucans?

On the times that my cholesterol ratios or triglycerides have spiked, I usually have to go on a depressing diet of a lot of plain Dahi yoghurt (Indian/Pakistani bacterias), a lot of salad greens, cucumbers, and broth I make myself.

Click to expand...

Just do a Google search for a list, the obvious source of beta-glucan is oats but it's also found in veggies such as broccoli & mushrooms.

Garlic is also said to help lower cholesterol levels so do add fresh garlic to your food @Contralto , I made a pan of soup this morning and added plenty of garlic to it

Garlic boosts the immune system so I tend to not use very much of it.

I took plant sterols that seemed to lower my cholesterol. I too refused statins. I did read statins can cause spikes in blood sugar. Not sure if that is true.

LittleGreyCat said:

I had bad experiences with two statins.
Currently I have high cholesterol but good BG control, a sensible weight (12 stone, six foot tall), and an active lifestyle, and normal blood pressure. Scan for aortic aneurysm in the abdomen a year or so ago seemed to show no issues and a good lining to at least one major blood vessel.

So barring an in depth and intrusive investigation of my vascular system I see no obvious evidence that my high cholesterol is causing me any problems.

I do know people with familial hypercholesterolaemia who have had blocked blood vessels, needed stents, in one case a quadruple bypass. However in those cases the problems manifested some time ago and they are of similar ages. I don't THINK I have that problem.

Click to expand...

"
AAAs have traditionally been considered to be a
manifestation of atherosclerosis (7). However, this
conventional theory has been increasingly challenged
in recent years. Although many AAAs are accompanied
by pathologic evidence of atherosclerosis, a
causal relation has not been confirmed. Since most
persons with atherosclerosis do not develop an AAA,
it is likely that even if atherosclerosis does play some
role in AAA pathogenesis, additional etiopathologic
processes are involved. This is supported by research
at the cellular level that has shown pathologic and biochemical
differences between atherosclerotic occlusive
and aneurysmal disease of the aorta (8-14). For
example, in comparison with aortic tissue in atherosclerotic
occlusive disease, aneurysmal aortic tissue is
characterized by a greater amount of proteolytic activity
(8-12) and inflammation (13, 14). The determinants
and implications of these findings remain
unclear. However, the familial aggregation of incidence
of AAAs suggests that genetic susceptibility
may play a key role in their pathogenesis (15, 16).
Furthermore, risk factors for AAA may be different
than those for atherosclerosis. Lilienfeld et al. (5) have
pointed to epidemiologic differences between coro-
nary heart disease and stroke and AAAs as evidence
supporting this hypothesis.
In previous analytic studies of risk factors for AAAs,
cigarette smoking was the only atherosclerotic risk
factor that has been consistently associated with AAA
(17-26). With respect to other known atherosclerotic
risk factors, such as hypertension and hypercholesterolemia,
results from previous studies have been
inconsistent (19, 21-24, 27-30). We conducted a casecontrol
study in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to
investigate the association between AAAs and atherosclerotic
and other risk factors for AAAs."

https://oup.silverchair-cdn.com/oup...n-nFkbvrOA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIUCZBIA4LVPAVW3Q

Contralto said:

yes, unfortunately, I went online and noticed that grains top the list of glucans but was pleased to see that all the exotic mushrooms I take like lions head and maitake and shitake and beech mushroom various colors etc. etc. that I eat a lot of are on the list.

So, I think I will get the slow cooker out , pour some already boiled water over about four monkey mushrooms (cousins to the lions head that I have in a jar dried) that I have ripped to tiny bits, and let those babies bloom over a few hours, maybe add some Himalayan pink salt after a while, make a gallon or so to drink , wonderful flavors

So, knowing your Chinese mushrooms is a plus

Click to expand...

Try Psilocybe semilanceata, then you won't worry about your cholesterol level.

Bluetit1802 said:

Please don't be fed up.

I think I mentioned on your other thread that the best foods for increasing HDL and lowering LDL are:

oily fish (at least 3 meals a week) especially salmon
avocado
olive oil/rapeseed oil
flax seed
chia seed
almonds, pistachios, peanuts
red wine

and exercise.

Carbohydrate depletes HDL

I eat saturated fats and am very low carb/high fat. My HDL is 2.51 (increased from 1.44 on diagnosis)

Click to expand...

This is a great list. Based on my own personal experience, 30g of crushed flax seed daily helped reduce my LDL cholesterol combined with a drastic reduction of saturated fats.

Contralto said:

Prem, do you happen to know what those numbers are in American form for total cholesterol? Or do you refer to ratios being under 4? I can't understand the British system?

Click to expand...

I thought the US cholesterol figures are the same as the UK figures.
That cholesterol calculator is American, I believe:
http://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

Perhaps one of the other US forum members will know. @NoCrbs4Me ?

Prem51 said:

I thought the US cholesterol figures are the same as the UK figures.
That cholesterol calculator is American, I believe:
http://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

Perhaps one of the other US forum members will know. @NoCrbs4Me ?

Click to expand...

That calculator is an American site but the author has converted it to UK measurements, which are in mmol/l. In America they use mg/dL It says so in the first paragraph of the calculator

This SI version in mmol per liter is for folks outside the United States! In case you were curious I just took the US mg/dL limits for all the numbers and just divided by 38.66 which is the conversion factor. So a US cholesterol number of 200 mg/dL is the same as a SI cholesterol number of 200/38.66 = 5.17 mmol/L.

Prem51 said:

I thought the US cholesterol figures are the same as the UK figures.
That cholesterol calculator is American, I believe:
http://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

Perhaps one of the other US forum members will know. @NoCrbs4Me ?

Click to expand...

I'm Canadian.