Hi everyone, I had a hysterectomy in May 2007. My pre-op blood work showed my total cholesterol at 240. The Dr. is giving me until September to get my diet/health in order and have my cholesterol lower or he will have me start a statin. I refuse to take medication for a condition that I know I can control via diet/exercise. When I lose weight, my cholesterol has always gone down and the reverse is true. Is it realistic to think that staying LC for 9 weeks will lower my cholesterol at all?

Any advise is appreciated. Sandy

Welcome Sandy,

I recommend waiting 6 months before having the blood chemisty retest. There can be a short term rise in blood cholesterol levels when weight loss begins. It takes a while for the body to fully adjust.

Thanks Mike. I was wondering if that could happen. I will put the doctor off for a while. =)

I hope that you will re-read this statement objectively. Your Dr. cannot "give" you until September to lower your cholesterol, and he cannot "have you" start a statin. You make the choice to show up when he says to, and he can write the Rx, but the choice is ultimately yours to make.

You didn't mention what your other numbers are. I would be interested to know, as the total cholesterol is only a small part of the overall picture.

And, no I would not expect significant improvement in any parameter except triglycrides and blood glucose in 9 weeks. I would give it at least 6 months. Then take ALL the bloodwork into consideration before making a decision to take a statin.

Just my .02 Of course you do what you feel is best!

Good advice. They gave me 3 mo to lower mine LDL = 131 Total 206 -- I don't plan on doing anything different except eat more fish. I already use flax and walnuts daily. Most Doc's are quick to prescribe statins for sure. I think total cholesterol can vary quite a bit from one day to the next.

Flaxseed oil is terrific in lowering cholesterol - works like a charm. The higher the mg the better!

This is an interesting post and I'm glad I found it. Last Friday I had bloodwork done and today I get a call from my doctor today telling me he wants to see me becuase my cholesterol is elevated.

This bums me out as I've been on Atkins for 2 months and lost 21 pounds. I have been taking flaxseed oil and fish oil tablets everyday for about 30 days now as I was scared doing Atkins that my cholesterol would rise...I tried started back in January but again went to the doctor and bloodwork revealed high cholesterol...stopped the diet and went back 2 weeks later and cholesterol was back to normal.

I'm not gonna give up on this WOE as I need to continue to lose weight and while my progress is veeerrrrrrrrrry slow, the fact remains that I am losing.

I have an appt. to go see him on Friday, July 31st...hopefully he won't want to put me on any meds...if so, I'll just tell him I want to wait another month and have them re-check it again. If cholesterol levels can vary maybe he caught me on bad day.

Read through this blog: http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com and try the supplements he recommends. Also, you've got to give low carb diets at least 3 months to help you out.

Your cholesterol will probably read high if you are actively losing fat, particularly your LDL.

Well said ElleH.

My 2 cents. Don't worry about it. Total cholesterol is meaningless by itself. No matter how they try, there really is no evidence that total cholesterol has anything to do with heart disease....or LDL for that matter.

Triglycerides have been implicated in the past and recent research is making people take a second look. But this is for levels after eating, not fasting. Seems that the more it goes up after a meals is indicative of your risk....of course they don't mention what people ate....and of course they are really grasping for straws!!

High HDL is good, low triglycerides are good. You can increase HDl and lower triglycerides following a low carb diet. Large fluffy LDL, found with lower carb intake, is probably beneficial and small dense LDL, found with high carb intake, are probably bad. Otherwise I think it's all meaningless.

Before you allow your doc to "make you" take a statin, check out the research. Dr Mike has posted on inflammation (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=804) and other things that are more likely to be the culprit. Also check out the side effects of statins, and at least know what to watch for. CoQ10 should always be taken with statins.

Oh yea...research also apparently indicates that women benefit from higher cholesterol levels, especially as we age. And statins appear to show no benefit in preventative treatment, and in women with or without vessel disease.

Recently I read a comment from one of the sites I check from time to time. Could have been Mercola, Briffa, who knows. I'm paraphrasing here:

"If cholesterol circulating in my blood is the cause of heart disease, then why don't smaller arteries in other parts of the body build up plaque? And why only arteries, and not veins? and why aren't capillaries blocked up?"

Beans and whole grains remove cholesterol from the digestive tract. Go with a small serving of slow cooking oatmeal. Another food to include is tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts), about 1 oz per day. Ground flax seed, 1 tbsp per day. I am not a huge fan of grains but the effectiveness of oatmeal for lowering cholesterol is well documented.

Powerful antioxidants should help. Have a crucifer cooked, and raw every day. They are also good for preventing cancer.

Losing weight helps cholesterol overall. Exercise helps lower LDL.

If you are really serious about lowering cholesterol go vegan (with nuts, not low fat) and watch it crash.

And have cooked and raw crucifers regardless. Can't stress the importance of that enough.

Ugh, don't eat grains unless you want to take statins too.

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/search?q=wheat

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2...heat-belly.html

Yeah , no grains as Nancy says..and forget the raw crucifers as well,, they can inhibit thyroid function and make it that much harder to process cholesterol.

Always steam your veggies..always

RE grains
http://jama.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/290/4/502

Effects of a Dietary Portfolio of Cholesterol-Lowering Foods vs Lovastatin on Serum Lipids and C-Reactive Protein
David J. A. Jenkins, MD; Cyril W. C. Kendall, PhD; Augustine Marchie, BSc; Dorothea A. Faulkner, PhD; Julia M. W. Wong, RD; Russell de Souza, RD; Azadeh Emam, BSc; Tina L. Parker, RD; Edward Vidgen, BSc; Karen G. Lapsley, DSc; Elke A. Trautwein, PhD; Robert G. Josse, MB, BS; Lawrence A. Leiter, MD; Philip W. Connelly, PhD


JAMA. 2003;290:502-510.

Context To enhance the effectiveness of diet in lowering cholesterol, recommendations of the Adult Treatment Panel III of the National Cholesterol Education Program emphasize diets low in saturated fat together with plant sterols and viscous fibers, and the American Heart Association supports the use of soy protein and nuts.

Objective To determine whether a diet containing all of these recommended food components leads to cholesterol reduction comparable with that of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins).

Design Randomized controlled trial conducted between October and December 2002.

Setting and Participants Forty-six healthy, hyperlipidemic adults (25 men and 21 postmenopausal women) with a mean (SE) age of 59 (1) years and body mass index of 27.6 (0.5), recruited from a Canadian hospital-affiliated nutrition research center and the community.

Interventions Participants were randomly assigned to undergo 1 of 3 interventions on an outpatient basis for 1 month: a diet very low in saturated fat, based on milled whole-wheat cereals and low-fat dairy foods (n = 16; control); the same diet plus lovastatin, 20 mg/d (n = 14); or a diet high in plant sterols (1.0 g/1000 kcal), soy protein (21.4 g/1000 kcal), viscous fibers (9.8 g/1000 kcal), and almonds (14 g/1000 kcal) (n = 16; dietary portfolio).

Main Outcome Measures Lipid and C-reactive protein levels, obtained from fasting blood samples; blood pressure; and body weight; measured at weeks 0, 2, and 4 and compared among the 3 treatment groups.

Results The control, statin, and dietary portfolio groups had mean (SE) decreases in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol of 8.0% (2.1%) (P = .002), 30.9% (3.6%) (P<.001), and 28.6% (3.2%) (P<.001), respectively. Respective reductions in C-reactive protein were 10.0% (8.6%) (P = .27), 33.3% (8.3%) (P = .002), and 28.2% (10.8%) (P = .02). The significant reductions in the statin and dietary portfolio groups were all significantly different from changes in the control group. There were no significant differences in efficacy between the statin and dietary portfolio treatments.

Conclusion In this study, diversifying cholesterol-lowering components in the same dietary portfolio increased the effectiveness of diet as a treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

----> The diet, which included whole grains ("viscous fibre") and plant sterols gave results comparable to a statin. Jenkins et al get a lot of results like this. Personally I don't eat grains more than once weekly but I get results anyway.