Cholesterol/Statins (again!)


#1

Bit of help needed please. My husband went on statins a year ago and fairly soon felt he was forgetting things. This has come and gone but hasn’t really been a problem till the past month or so when I feel he has a problem. I wish to rule out the statins causing this problem (apparently can be a side effect) and so were going to dr’s Thursday. I would like him to come off them for a few months and have blood tests now and maybe 4 months. He doesn’t eat keto but is actually quite happy to do anything I suggest and change to that way. He is 78 but I don’t want them to just look at his age. He’s always been super fit. If he has a problem so be it….but I don’t want to go straight down that route.

His blood numbers are…

Before statins. Serum cholesterol. 6.8 mol/L
Serum HDL cholesterol 2.43 mol/L
Serum cholesterol/HDL ratio. 2.8
Serum tryglicerides. 0.82 mol/L

And after 3 months. 5
2.42
2.1
1.21

What am I really looking for in these numbers? Are they that bad?

Thanks in advance for any help. A


(Bill) #2

The Triglyceride/HDL ratio is thought to be more indicative than the individual cholesterol numbers.

Your husbands has gone from 0.34 pre statins
to 0.5 (anything sub 0.87 is considered “good”)

Which means, whilst still good, it has worsened.

Personally I will never take a statin as the side effects are a lot worse than the alleged “benefits”.

Brain fog/ forgetfulness is also a well know side effect of the drugs.

My mother was diagnosed with early onset dementia just after she started a course of statins… my father had to take over running everything as well as cooking. When he died we took her off them and within a few weeks my funny smart mother returned and the zombie she had been disappeared…

There’s a good thread on diabetes.co.uk/forum if you want to delve further.


(KM) #3

Great link!


(Alec) #4

Please spend the time to watch this. Dr Kendrick explains why high LDL CANNOT be the cause of CVD.

Statins are bad drugs. I would never take them.


#5

Thanks all

Will watch that video and look at all the other threads.

I thought it was the triglyceride/HDL ratio that was more indicative. I have all this written down to take with us. Looking everywhere only talks of low cholesterol and low carb go together. I’m a bit nervous as I know whatever I say the doctor will come back with some science I don’t have the knowledge to refute but maybe not….I don’t want to go down the diagnostic dementia tests yet.


(Bob M) #6

A former astronaut wrote a book about statins and memory:

I have not read this book, but it seems reasonable to me that a drug that interferes with cholesterol might not be great for the brain.

If he’s happy to do anything you suggest, have him limit carbs or try keto. Also, try some MCT oils, which provide higher ketones for a relatively short time period. See if he has any improvement mentally.


#7

Stress is a factor for high cholesterol.

Funny that docs here in Finland do not agree but in the neighbor Sweden it´s being taken in account.

I have experience, I got my attack with normal cholesterol values eight years ago. Got a stent. The following week my lipids were out of the roof -and I was prescribed statins for hypercholesterolemia.

No butter,red meat eggs the usual bla bla.

As if I had eaten something in a week to triple my numbers and get “hypercholesterolemia” overnight. I did not know it then but the stress from knowing your all new heart failures out of nowhere…I could have died… that kind of info tends to cause stress you know.

A swedish nurse friend pointed out stress and cortisol to me. She was right.

I only wrote this to remind of the possible stress factor. Personally, I just relaxed and quit statins for less statin induced stress. I found I was thinking about the possible statin problems all the time.

Best of luck,whatever you decide!


#8

So……. I just took myself off for a long walk and listened to the above video by Malcolm Kendrick. Although a lot of it was above me he did get round to saying no scientific research at all to blame high cholesterol on CVD and you should eat lower/low carb get sunshine and less stress and that blood clots over time are what cause CVD

I can’t see why she should refuse… it’s getting her not to suggest them again in 4 months even if his levels are the same

Sorry don’t know how to reply to people specifically but
Bob… I will get him to limit all that after we’ve done blood tests if she wants them

Carburettors… Hope you’re ok now. This is definitely stressing him a bit. His blood pressure is raised too at the moment


(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #9

I believe in Dr Ken Berry. Everything he says has come true in my case. Berry says two important things on this subject.
!/ No proof cholesterol is bad (our brains are mostly cholesterol!)
2/ Statins have a very very little positive effect on anything (expect drug Companies bank balance)


(David Cooke) #10

There are various online calculators, into which you can enter your HDL, LDL, triglyceride, etc, values. Despite my total cholesterol being in excess of the “recognised” safe value, three calculators indicated “good”, no excess risk. As usual after a blood test, I was prescribed statins, and as usual I threw them into the rubbish. There is a phone app, CholesterolLog LDL calculator which is worth looking at.


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #11

Your husband’s numbers are lovely. He should not be on a statin in the first place. Look up the recommendations of Aseem Malhotra, the cardiologist, and you will find that, while he feels that statins do have their place in treatment, they are often over-prescribed, and many patients do better after being taken off the statin.

Furthermore, even if your husband actually is in need of a statin, there are statins that do not cross the blood-brain barrier and thus do not cause the kind of mental confusion you are observing. Several studies have now shown that withdrawing the statin causes the confusion to clear up, and that resuming treatment brings it back, so there is a clear indication that you are not just seeing things.

Lastly, while Professor Sir Rory Collins, the director of the Oxford Statin Trialists Group, claims that statin side effects occur at an extremely low rate, the company he formed to market his genetic test for whether one is liable to such side effects claims that at least 1/4 of the population is vulnerable to statin side effects. It is notable that when Professor Sir Rory was confronted with this discrepancy, he brushed it off as “marketing” and refused to say anything more on the subject.


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

It is. Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels have been shown to be extremely poor indicators of cardiovascular risk. In British/European units, you want a ratio of triglyceride to HDL under 0.9, and your husband’s is 0.33, which is superb. (BTW, the ratio should be under 2.0 in U.S. units.)

You can also watch some of the videos Professor David Diamond has done on statins. He is a neurologist by trade, but he got interested in lipidology after it was shown that he has a condition called familial hypertryglyceridaemia. By embarking on a ketogenic diet, he was able to reduce his triglycerides from some obscenely high level to a normal level. Because his doctor was pushing a stain on him, he got interested in statin research and has some scathing remarks to say about the statistical manipulation involved in the manufacturers’ marketing claims.

Lastly, be aware that there is a group known as the International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics (THINCS). They are all highly respected researchers who have serious reservations about the whole saturated fat-cholesterol-cardiovascular disease hypothesis.


(Alec) #13

You need to remember that your doctor is working for you, not the other way around. It should not be a question of whether she refuses or not: she is in no position to insist that you/your partner takes a statin.

I have frequently told doctors that “I am making an informed choice to politely decline your offer of statins”. I have never taken them, despite my cholesterol being sky high throughout my life. At aged 60, my current CAC scan score is 10, which is not zero, but it is still very low, and the doctor who wrote the CAC report told me that he would not be in any way concerned with a score of 10.

If you are concerned about cardiovascular health I would recommend 2 things:

  1. Go on a carnivore diet (for life)
  2. Get a CAC scan (or CT angiogram) done: this looks at the real pathology, not a discredited proxy marker like LDL level.

#14

I was just reading last night about Zoe Harcombe too and have a screen shot of the absolute risk reductions of statins as a pose to relative risk. I’m not sure my husband was told either.
Pjam…. That’s the other thing. There doesn’t seem to be any proof of cholesterol being bad but we’re still all trying to get within a range.

Paul… Having listened to a podcast with Aseem Malhorta where he declares that a statin would never be his first choice I was a bit saddened that his website seemed to go down the usual route of statins to lower cholesterol being the recommendation. Maybe if you get an actual appointment he’d suggest otherwise.

Some statins like atorvastatin are lipophilic (fat soluble) and can cross the brain barrier. Apparently they can help with diseases like alzheimers… apparently they can cause cognitive impairment. Are those 2 sentences not opposite each other :woman_shrugging: no wonder the general public are confused.

I will mention a CAC scan but I’m not sure they’re available on the NHS. Otherwise they’re about £600


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #15

He’s quoting the standard of care in the U.K. I believe it’s promoted by NICE. But in a number of lectures I’ve seen on YouTube he says that they are not appropriate in many cases. He can’t come right out and say statins are no good at all; for one thing, they do actually lower cholesteroll and for another, the accepted wisdom is still that cholesterol = A VERY BAD THING.

Fortunately, others, such as Dr. David Unwin and Dr. Malcom Kendrick, are fighting those battles. The NHS has accepted a ketogenic diet as a treatment for Type II diabetes, and it might be possible to get them to accept that patients’ cholesterol levels generally normalise on a keto diet, as well. Kendrick and others are pushing the idea that it is stress on the circulatory system that causes cardiovascular disease: elevated BP (such as from a high-carb diet), glycation (such as from a high-carb diet), hypercoagulability (from certain genetic variants, exacerbated by a high-carb diet), airborne pathogens (air pollution and industrial solvents, etc.)–anything that causes the rate of damage to arteries to exceed the body’s normal capacity for repair. Read Kendrick’s book, The Clot Thickens.


#16

Paul…. Your last paragraph sums up what Malcolm Kendrick said in the above video far better than the few words I could remember :woman_facepalming:


#17

So… my husband is off statins for 3 months. He will change his eating but at the end of the day the only figure that really mattered to the doctor was cholesterol of 6.8. She says if there’s a change in cognition then he can have a different statin that doesn’t cross the brain barrier. She wasn’t really accepting my argument that science had moved on nor about the studies being funded by big Pharma or Aseem Malhotra and despite asking several times what the absolute risk reduction was instead of relative risk she kept repeating that without a statin, 2 out of 3 people would have a heart attack.

Anyway… he’s off them for 3 months with her blessing and we’ll take it from there.:woman_shrugging:


#18

Well done for fighting his corner, I hope his memory improves :pray:


(Alec) #19

I repeat, she is not in charge here, you are.


(KM) #20

What?

Unless I’m reading out of context and missed something, you don’t need a new statin, you need a new doctor.