To statin or not to statin?

[TheWolvesAreRunning]

My age 50 health check has revealed high cholesterol. I really don’t want to start on medication this young so would be grateful to hear thoughts/experiences…

total cholesterol 6.9
ldl 4.2
hdl 2.4
triglycerides 0.64
hdl/ldl ratio 2.9

i am otherwise fit and healthy… bmi 20.5, good bp, non smoker, largely Mediterranean diet, walk lots & do yoga. Q risk was 1.7. In peri menopause, 6 mths since last period.

there is some family history but only heart attacks have been aunt/gp, both heavy smokers and poor lifestyles.

i would like to try lifestyle approach - oats, plant sterols, increased cardio - for 3 months and retest. Does this seem reasonable?

@minipie funnily enough PCOS can increase your risk of CVS disease too.
The thing with statins is that they do help stabilise vessel walls so that’s why they are often used post MIs even if the patient doesn’t have high cholesterol.

You could try the very low fat diet. It's all fat below 3% and sat fat below 1.5%.

Low carb/high fat (saturated/animal fats) and keto has been found to lower cholesterol.
Saturated fats are not the enemy they were made out to be.

That’s interesting… what’s MI?

Still not worried about cardio issues for me personally, I have no risk factors plus in my case it’s HDL that’s high rather than LDL so less worried for that reason too. (Now feel like I am tempting fate!!).

OP do you know your HDL and LDL split?

I'm 51 and my cholesterol level was 6.4, Dr said it was "slightly" elevated. I am taking Atorvastatin.
I am not fit, my diet us crap. Plus my B12 wasn't good.
I have changed some if the food I eat to better choices.
My mental health issues make exercising difficult, due to people.

I would be very careful of statins. I have high cholesterol at 7.1. My GP advised no statins because my risk of heart issues is still low & statins could cause me more problems than they solve.

Late 60s, my cholesterol was 6.7 a year ago and was offered statins which I refused. I have cut out as much saturated fat as possible, have benecol spread and drinks, lots of oats etc. As well as losing 2 st, cholesterol's now down to 5.2. Qrisk just over 10% but I'm sure I can improve that if I'd just get off the sofa!

Ive been taking mine for a month and the side effects are horrendous. The body pain!!! Off the scale..a lot other symptoms too. I feel very poorly on them tbh. I know its not everyone so don't let me put you off. I think my level was 5.7

Did anyone get the joint muscle pains in statins? And does it go away?

Your ratio is fine, less than 4.5. And your triglycerides (related to diet and lifestyle are good). Your LDL is what is pushing up the overall lipid score but this is made in the liver and tends to run in families so dietary efforts may be negligible.
With a Q risk that good I wouldn't start a statin. It's not high risk.
Make sure your BP and hba1c are satisfactory and maybe repeat in one year.

Doh ignore my q about HDL/LDL I see it’s in your OP!

* JUST PUTTING THIS IN CAPITALS SO IT'S NOT MISSED- IF YOU HAVE JOINT/ MUSCLE PAIN GO BACK TO THE GP AND ASK FOR AN ALTERNATIVE STATIN, THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS *

If you try to modify diet make sure you are getting enough calcium. I cut out cheese and milk and now have oestopenia. Now on statins eating cheese, vit D but still have oestopenia.

As above I believe there are 4 different statins, different statins suit different people. I've just done the NHS future health thing and my cholesterol came back high at 7.3 I've just turned 40 and eat healthily, run and do Pilates and I am underweight so I think it's very likely I'll be put on statins as its likely hereditary so I've been trying to do my research. I've been drinking benecol drinks daily since and using benecol spread to see if that lowers it before the blood test I have with my GP which will be about a month after the initial test I did. I'll be interested to see it it makes a difference as I don't think I could change my diet without loosing weight, which I don't want to do as I'm already underweight!

Quick update. I spoke to a dr yesterday who recommended a 3 month lifestyle approach or a low dose statin. He didn't seem to be considering anything beyond the total cholesterol number. I'm going to get retested in 3 months and will try the oats/benecol/increased cardio approach.

The reading I've done this week suggests that with good triglycerides and hdl plus a healthy lifestyle, the ldl may not be too terrible. Lots of conflicting opinions out there, even in the medical world...

Thanks for all the posts, so helpful :)

Good news, hope it works for you, thank you for the update 💐