anyone dealing with elevated cholesterol?

Chasksfromalaska

can this be improved with diet and exercise since its not too high or should I go on a statin? My PCG is quick to answer everything with a pill. I would like to try a natural way first.

Lietchi

It's going to be highly individual, but yes, in many cases cholesterol readings can be improved by making lifestyle changes:
- lose weight (if overweight)
- increase activity/exercise
- increase fiber intake
- increase intake of unsaturated fats (nuts, fatty fish, avocado,...)
- reduce processed/junk food (especially if you have high triglycerides)

If high cholesterol runs in the family, it may not help (enough) but it's definitely worth a try!

My cholesterol wasn't too high when I was obese, but I definitely saw positive changes when I lost weight and became more active.

PS: I hope your blood was drawn after fasting? My BF recently had a blood test and they mentioned his 'elevated' cholesterol, but they hadn't told him to fast beforehand. It makes a difference!

wm3796

I was exercising and had a very healthy diet but couldn’t lower my cholesterol to a good healthy level so finally started statins se weak years ago with great results. Of course I didn’t quit with exercise or healthy diet. High cholesterol runs in family.

byusuri22

I've had high cholesterol my whole life. Even when I was younger, it was always over 200. Eating better and exercising regularly helped bring it below 200 for the first time.

AnnPT77

wm3796 wrote: »

I was exercising and had a very healthy diet but couldn’t lower my cholesterol to a good healthy level so finally started statins se weak years ago with great results. Of course I didn’t quit with exercise or healthy diet. High cholesterol runs in family.

I absolutely believe and endorse what this person ^^^ is saying.

At the same time, I'd share a contrasting personal history. For me, losing weight brought my formerly high cholesterol down into the normal range, and my primary care physician recently called my levels "phenomenal". I never did take the statin.

Here's the thing: I have no reason to believe I have the genetic predisposition, i.e., familial hypercholesterolemia. That makes a difference, a big one.

Personally, I did ramp up exercise to quite high levels, and kept them there for several years while still class 1 obese, but still had high cholesterol. I also ate a lot of healthy foods, have been vegetarian for decades, eating lots of veggies/fruits and whole grains . . . but just ate way too many calories, and too many fried and treat foods in the mix, I'm sure, contributing to those high calories. The healthy foods part didn't stop me having high cholesterol. I also tried various supplements and "natural" remedies, with little or no effect from those. But even part way through weight loss, my cholesterol normalized, and has stayed there for nearly ten years since at a continued healthy weight.

You may not be like me, or you may not be like the person I quoted. The familial hypercholesterolemia possibility is really important, but there are other potential sources of individual variability, too. Don't be afraid to try improved nutrition, weight loss, and regular exercise. Those will have some great benefits, even if they don't lower your cholesterol . . . but they might.

Best wishes!

neanderthin

First of all LDL and HDL aren't actually cholesterol they're containers that carry cholesterol, triglycerides, fat soluble vitamins and other metabolites and those containers are called "lipoproteins" and deliver said cargo to all cells throughout the body that have receptors for those individual metabolites.

There is only one type of cholesterol and whether that cholesterol is in an LDL lipoprotein or an HDL lipoprotein, and there's other ones as well like IDL, VLDL but its all the same cholesterol, cholesterol is just cholesterol.

It's the liver that manufactures these LDL and HDL lipoprotein and it's because that cargo is hydrophobic and just can't enter the blood stream, so it gets manufactured and distributed by the liver instead, mostly, each cell has the ability to make it own cholesterol as well. The gov't finally removed the requirement to limit cholesterol to 300mgs in 2015, although they still refer to restricting dietary cholesterol all the time and it's no secret they don't like animal products in general, basically it's the blind leading the blind in that context.

So heart disease, cholesterol, bad LDL.... blah, blah, blah yeah it's complicated and confusing.

When we look at heart disease, it happens in specific areas mostly with the Left Anterior Descending Artery (LAD) often referred to as the "widowmaker" and the other artery that branches off that artery called the Left Circumflex Artery (LCA) as well as the Right Coronary Artery (RCA) and this trifecta is responsible for over 90% of all heart attaches. So, why here?

So why here, has to do with turbulence and pressure (PSI) that's exerted on those arteries which is also inflammatory and secondarily the type of flow or current that exists. Most of the "damage" exerted is where the LCA meets the LAD basically creating a disturbance in blood flow because of the redirection of that blood flow with this new tributary causing an eddy effect where the blood then circulates in a circular motion in a very oxygenated environment as well, basically those lipoproteins instead of flowing directly are now caught up in this eddy and it's this extra time where oxidation is emphasized and oxygen is the main contributor for oxidation and actually without oxygen we don't see much atherosclerosis which is evident of the vein side of our circulatory system, it pretty much doesn't exist.

Here's the meat and potatoes. Atherogenicity, or the tendency to promote the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, largely depends on the presence of arterial damage from inflammation, basically no damage not much if any atherosclerosis. So what causes this endothelium (artery lining) damage. Heart disease is an inflammatory disease so chronic inflammation is the basic driver. Some of the contributors are high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, diabetes, oxidative stress, and a sedentary lifestyle, the main ones which all contribute to chronic inflammation.

As it relates to diet it's the overconsumption of UPF's and sugar which leads to elevated blood sugar with insulin resistance, prediabetes and diabetes eventually becoming more evident. When we look at the population that have IR, prediabetes or diabetes it basically makes up about 80% of the US population, give or take.

So, the damage exerted on the lining of our arteries creates gaps in the cellular structure of what's called tight junctions which then allows metabolites to enter the blood stream and that's when cholesterol that also get oxidized from hanging around longer in those eddy's gets caught up and then more LDL shows up and layer after layer creates plaque that calcifies which is where some can break off causing strokes.

Basically is all about the health of the individuals metabolism and has very little to do with actual cholesterol and unfortunately most people have something to be worried about. Reduce inflammation would be a good route to take and probably reducing UPF with whole foods would be advisable as well, imo.

sytrusze1980

I would like to add: please do your research on saturated fats. Saturated fats don't seem to be "unhealthy" after all. First thing everyone tells you is to avoid saturated fats, but what most people do is go for "light" products, where they most likely add sugars. I'm from the Netherlands and we call it "Verzadigde vetten". If you just type that on youtube, the first 10 results are from doctors, nutritionists that claim that saturated fats aren't unhealthy or bad for your cholesterol (backed up by research of course). However, I'm not a doctor but I just want to say that the food industry capitalizes of offering "light" products which may be worse for cholesterol than regular (non processed) products.

neanderthin

sytrusze1980 wrote: »

I would like to add: please do your research on saturated fats. Saturated fats don't seem to be "unhealthy" after all. First thing everyone tells you is to avoid saturated fats, but what most people do is go for "light" products, where they most likely add sugars. I'm from the Netherlands and we call it "Verzadigde vetten". If you just type that on youtube, the first 10 results are from doctors, nutritionists that claim that saturated fats aren't unhealthy or bad for your cholesterol (backed up by research of course). However, I'm not a doctor but I just want to say that the food industry capitalizes of offering "light" products which may be worse for cholesterol than regular (non processed) products.

The basic reason why authorities like the USDA and the WHO said and still do believe saturated fat causes heart disease is based on observational studies (epidemedoodly) where the people that ate the most saturated fat were in the percentile that were also the most unhealthy.

Actual biochemistry tells a completely different story, which is now more widely accepted because it's more talked about in mainstream but actually has been know for decades. Saturated fats effects on bio markers of health improve across the board when saturated fats displace carbs with refined carbs and sugar showing the most overall improvement. The reason is simple, a measurement trumps an opinion every time.