Opinions on Statins

Jeanie_Hamilton_ said:

Hi since being diagnosed 6 months ago with type 2 I have shed 3.5 stones in weight and lowered my BG from 101 in April to 44 in Sept on Metformin , thought I was doing really well till my diabetes adviser said that my cholesterol was high 5.2 and prescribed a statin tablet also advised that a lot of the foods I have been eating as a mainstay of my low carb diet should not be eaten when taking statin eg eggs / dairy.

I have not taken the statin tablet and was wondering if I continued with my diet that perhaps my levels would fall without the help of this medication
look forward to your opinions

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Hello and welcome,

Well done on your weight loss and lowered HbA1c - brilliant!

Who is your diabetes adviser? A doctor? A nurse? Whoever it is is not advising you correctly.

The 5.2 cholesterol is your total cholesterol. That is the total of the good and the bad. You need to know what the breakdown is (HDL/LDL/Triglycerides) before doing anything else. 5.2, believe me, is not high. Mine is 6.1 but all my good stuff is high and my bad stuff is low. Do find out what your breakdown was (a print out of the test results will show this)

Did your adviser tell you that statins increase blood glucose levels? It actually warns of that on the instructions in the packets.

Why can't you eat eggs? Yes, they contain cholesterol, but dietary cholesterol is only a minute part of our body cholesterol. Our livers make 85% our cholesterol. No reason not to eat eggs. They are good for us and full of essential nutrients. Some people find that too much dairy may influence their cholesterol, but most of us don't. Personally, I thrive off it.

It seems to me your present diet and lifestyle is perfect for you. I wouldn't be changing it.

I'm Type 2 and I take statins. I'm on a LCHF diet. I eat three egg yolks every day (along with 9-12 egg whites, avocado, bacon, oily fish, etc etc. I fry virtually everything (omelettes, fried eggs, bacon etc.)

Admittedly, I exercise a lot - usually twice a day and my cholesterol has come down but not to a point where I can come off statins (probably unlikely.)

I would be careful about coming off statins without medical advice.

And well done on loosing the 3.5 stones. Unfortunately, weight loss does not necessarily equate with cholesterol levels (and, although i am not brilliant at explaining it, the cholesterol figure they give you is based on the proportion of good to bad cholesterol - which means it can be manipulated by eating more of the good fats!

Worth bearing in mind.

Good luck

Sean

Jeanie_Hamilton_ said:

Hi since being diagnosed 6 months ago with type 2 I have shed 3.5 stones in weight and lowered my BG from 101 in April to 44 in Sept on Metformin , thought I was doing really well till my diabetes adviser said that my cholesterol was high 5.2 and prescribed a statin tablet also advised that a lot of the foods I have been eating as a mainstay of my low carb diet should not be eaten when taking statin eg eggs / dairy.

I have not taken the statin tablet and was wondering if I continued with my diet that perhaps my levels would fall without the help of this medication
look forward to your opinions

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Even from the first two answers you can see there is much debate here about cholesterol and statins. This is not confined to this forum but generally out in the medical world as well. There is no easy answer to this question so you should really do some research and see which side of the fence you wish to land on. For myself I woudn't touch them with a bargepole.. 5.2 is a long way from "high" and for older women higher cholesterol is beneficial (at least that's what the science shows us). Doctors have a bee in their bonnet because NICE says Type 2's should be 4 or lower (with very little science to back this up) or at least they used to. They may have changed this recently.
Cholesterol is essential for life without it we die.. does it sound like a good idea to mess around with it using pharmaceuticals?

Eggs do have cholesterol but only 15% of the total cholesterol in the body comes from diet, the rest is made by the body itself. Also, when you are actively losing weight this can upset the balance of Lipid levels and can show as a higher cholesterol level. This eventually settles down again.
I have chosen not to take a statin as the benefits imo have been vastly overstated. The benefit is low even after a heart related incident. More people die of heart attacks with low cholesterol levels than those with higher levels.
Main source: Kendrick 'The Great Cholesterol Con'.

Sean01 said:

I would be careful about coming off statins without medical advice.

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Not an issue in this case as the OP has stated they have not started taking them.

Well - I was reading that when there was a revolt against taking statins - it happened in France, there was a prediction that there would be an upsurge in deaths - but the exact opposite happened, there were almost exactly the predicted number FEWER deaths in the months which followed.
I don't take the statins I was prescribed at diagnosis.
I felt really ill and had so many side effects I stopped taking them, as life was not worth living like that - so far I have found nothing which indicates I am wrong.

My Diabetes story is similar to yours, diagnosed Type 2 in May and adopted a low carb diet. I’ve had two reviews since then, HbA1c down from 70 to 45 to 36, weight down by over 3 1/2 stone, but cholesterol levels deteriorated. I have resisted Statins to date, arguing side effects which don’t necessarily go if you stop them, dramatic weight loss and that they raise blood sugars. My GP respected my decision and said we’ll discuss it again at my next review in December!

Read up on the subject thoroughly .... they (IMO) are seriously bad. It's long overdue we had another online poll on this incredibly important topic so we can simply cross reference newbie questions to that "vote"

NoCrbs4Me said:

Not an issue in this case as the OP has stated they have not started taking them.

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Thank you for pointing that out. Believe me when I say that I read the post twice and again after seeing your point. Sometimes the mind decides what it wants to see.
I could have done with you in my finals.
Sean

I've been on nearly all stations and have reacted badly to some, I'm now on Creator which seems to be working. Incidentally I have been forced into a very low fat diet due to gall stones and contrary to the low carb is the only way views on here , all my numbers have gone down, hbac1, weight, all my cholesterol, trigs have halved . When I tried low carbing only my hbac1 reduced, all my cholesterol figures shot up

goose64 said:

I've been on nearly all stations and have reacted badly to some, I'm now on Creator which seems to be working. Incidentally I have been forced into a very low fat diet due to gall stones and contrary to the low carb is the only way views on here , all my numbers have gone down, hbac1, weight, all my cholesterol, trigs have halved . When I tried low carbing only my hbac1 reduced, all my cholesterol figures shot up

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Thats very interesting. May I ask what a typical weeks diet is for you?