• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Cholesterol

Jenny40

Member
Messages
16
Type of diabetes
Type 1
I was diagnosed as a Type 1 in July last year.

I have been doing so well and have brought my Hba1c down from 127 at diagnosis to 44 in November. However, I visited my GP on Monday for my routine check up and foot check, all good but they told me I needed a blood test to check my Cholesterol, well today I had a call from the doctors to say that it is high at 5.6 and they need me to go in and talk to the doctor.
I have tried so hard to watch what I eat and I really haven't changed what I eat, other than I eat less now, no snacks in between so my diet food wise is the same but I have never had high Cholesterol before! What am I doing wrong, just when I thought that I had got on top of this I am now worried that I have done something wrong,.
Is this something that happens when you are a diabetic?

Any help would be great, or any ideas ;-)

Thanks
Jenny
 
Please do not worry. Your total cholesterol of 5.6 is OK. It is because you have been diagnosed with diabetes that your GP will want to see you to offer you statins - because "all diabetics are offered statins".

Before you make any decisions please find out what the breakdown of your total cholesterol is. (HDL/LDL/Triglycerides) Without that information you have no idea how good or bad your cholesterol is. It is the HDL and triglycerides that matter. You can ring the surgery and ask the receptionist, and you can ask for a print out of the test results. If you are in England you can also ask if your surgery puts test results on-line as they were asked to do in 2016. If they do, ask how to register for this, but meanwhile, do find out what the breakdown is. There is absolutely no need to worry.
 


Thank you so much, that has put my mind at ease slightly, I am assuming that this is something that happens to most diabetics. I was so worried that I have been doing something wrong.
My doctors I am pretty sure have the online system, I will give them a call tomorrow to find out how I can get signed up.
If they do offer me the medication do I take it and is it something that I will need for life now?

Sorry for all the questions, I am just so unsure at the moment and don't want to do anything wrong. I expect that this won't be last time I have some other test flag up though ;-(
Thanks for your support, I do appreciate it!
 
I don't think that's quite correct. Triglycerides don't matter much at all for the vast majority of people, but they are a part of the LDL cholesterol calculation (LDLc= Total Chol - HDL - TG/5). Yes, some people have sky high trigs, like 2,000 mg/dl and are prone to pancreatitis but they are born with that problem it's an enzyme deficiency. And yes HDL is good and protective against coronary disease, but it tends to stay the same if you quit smoking. No drugs really raise it much either. So LDL is the bad boy in coronary disease and it can be lowered by 50% using statins which are pretty safe as prescription drugs go (read up on metformin if you want a drug with some potential side effects lol). I'm guessing you don't need anything but it's LDL that is the key lipid for most people
 
Wrong . There is good and bad ldl.
Ldl particle "a" the big fluffy type is good and ldl particle "b" is bad.

Docs only see the hradline calculation and prescribe statins which is not always a good thing.
 
grante said:
Wrong . There is good and bad ldl.
Ldl particle "a" the big fluffy type is good and ldl particle "b" is bad.

Docs only see the hradline calculation and prescribe statins which is not always a good thing.
Click to expand...

and the lower the triglycerides the more of the big fluffy LDL particles there will be.

@TheBigNewt

Even NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) is coming round to the fact that trigs are important, and have updated their recommendations to the NHS that LDL and trigs together are a better cardiovascular disease risk indicator than low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol on its own, which is why the recommendation is now for doctors to look at the Non-HDL levels rather than just the LDL when deciding on risk factors for primary prevention of CVD. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg181/chapter/2-Implementation-getting-started
 
Jenny40 said:
If they do offer me the medication do I take it and is it something that I will need for life now?
Click to expand...

The decision whether to take statins is entirely yours. We cannot advise you one way or the other. However, before you make any decision you NEED to know the full breakdown, and then you need to do some research or ask more questions. There are hundreds of threads on the forum about cholesterol, how much or how little it matters, how it matters, and whether statins are a good idea for people that have no heart problems. If you use the search box you will find these threads.
 
grante said:
Wrong . There is good and bad ldl.
Ldl particle "a" the big fluffy type is good and ldl particle "b" is bad.

Docs only see the hradline calculation and prescribe statins which is not always a good thing.
Click to expand...
Your doctor's lab won't measure LDLa. I told the 54 year old guy I saw earlier today who had a heart attack then his 3 vessel bypass in 2006 he needed to stay on Lipitor. He had really high LDL. Maybe he didn't have enough of the big fluffy stuff. Maybe the last guy of the day who had a HUGE heart attack when he was 53 with 2 stents and a defibrillator didn't have enough of it either. How do I get him more big fluffy stuff?
 
Last edited:
If/When my Cholesterol rises the first Place I look is at my Diet, the it. we tend to spend so much time worrying about our BS levels its easy to let the bad fats creep up on us Second is my Exercise Regime maybe I need to do more. I would always prefer to try and avoid Statins by controlling things as above if this does not work then Take lowest possible dose My Doctor prescribed 20mg I cut the tabs in 4 to make a 5mg daily dose. I am still taking 5mg
 
Hi all,

This is all really useful information. I have a call with my DNS nurse later today as I have filled her in on the results.

I will make sure that I do the research once I have spoken with the doctor and then make a decision as to whether I take any extra medication.

Thanks for the links too, they are also useful.

I was just confused as I have always been a healthy eater as I have a teenager and like to make sure that he is also eating the right foods, I love my salads in the summer and my home cooked meals. This is why being told that your cholesterol is high was a shock. I don't eat a lot of fat, I get lean everything and like sweet potato over normal. But hey, these things are sent to try us, it is all a learning curve and I know that I have a long way to go yet and don't think that I will ever know everything!
 
Are you sure about this ? - Trigs matter a lot to me, in fact, I am as interested in Trig level and HDL levels as I am in my Hba1C ? - there is more up to date research that is throwing the use of LDL as a metric into real doubt ?- almost to the point where its being described as a useless marker ?
 
Personally I wouldn’t touch statins with a barge pole. I thoroughly recommend ‘The Great Cholesterol Con’ by Malcolm Kendrick. In my opinion (and this is simply the opinion of a well read lay person) virtually our entire medical profession has been deceived by the pharmaceutical industry, exaggerating minuscule benefits of statins and downplaying the side effects, for me, the most serious one for diabetics is elevated blood glucose, that happens to a lot of people. If you believe, as I do, that it is high blood glucose and high levels of insulin that actually cause the inflammation that results in CVD, then the best thing to do is keep blood glucose and insulin levels low.

There has never been a clinical trial that has demonstrated any benefit in Cholesterol lowering for women. There are minuscule benefits for men with no previous history of CardioVascular Disease, there are small but statistically significant benefits for men with a previous history of CVD.

There are good videos on You Tube by Malcolm Kendrick, also this one that explains the real risks / benefits of statins in absolute risk terms, not relative risk that hugely exaggerates benefit.


My total cholesterol is over 9, but my trigs are very low (good) and my HDL very high (good) so I know that my LDL will be of the ‘large fluffy’ variety that poses no health risk. Don’t worry, read, read, read and research.
 
Coincidence - I agreed , after seeing a heart consultant, to go on 10mg of Atorvastatin. However, in a separate letter, the consultant recommended to the GP that I should go onto 20mg of Atorvastatin. The GP changed my prescription without referring back to me. Despite a couple of letters, my prescription hasn't been changed back, so I now take one 20mg tablet every other day.
 
Agreed, but only one thing is definite, for those who have heart problems or a high risk of that, statins are effective.
 
advising folks not to touch them when you dont know there medical history is dangerous. if your healthy apart from diabetes fine your choice. if you have a cardiac problem not taking them could be very serious. sure like any med check what your using and weight the risks. nothing is alway clear cut.
 
BrianTheElder said:
Agreed, but only one thing is definite, for those who have heart problems or a high risk of that, statins are effective.
Click to expand...
Effective in reducing the likelihood of another coronary event (heart attack, stent, bypass) by roughly 30%. Effective enough that another randomized trial using statins vs placebo in CAD patients will never be done because it would be unethical to randomize people to receive placebo. What do you think the prognosis of the guy I saw yesterday who had a bypass at age 43 was at that time AFTER he had suffered a heart attack? He takes Lipitor 80mg/d and is 54 working full time in a casino security 11 years later and has not had any stents or heart attacks. His LDL is now 100mg/dl. Imagine what it was before Lipitor, probably 200. Don't bore me with the "LDL isn't important" stuff. Please.
 
Hello Jenny, I'm sort of in the same boat as you.

My hba1c was 103 when I was diagnosed. Then it was 44 and the one just after Christmas was 41. I though I was doing well then I was told my cholesterol was high. It was 5.5, 2mmol good and 3.5 bad. I have the triglycerides result and I've posted it in the type 1 forum as I don't really understand it. They prescribed statins last week which I haven't collected as I don't want to take them. I saw my diabetes nurse yestersay and she said to have a think about the statins. I am still unsure as I want to reduce my cholesterol myself.

I don't think I helped myself as I got a taste for peanut butter and I was eating loads of it every day and even eating straight from the jar.

It's a hard decision to make regarding the statins and no doubt it's what they will offer you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…