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Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Are you on cholesterol medicine? Is it safe? What About HDL & LDL?

February 18, 2009 14 Comments

*Amazon or other affiliate links may be included, see full disclosure after the post. I'm not a medical professional, so use anything you read here only as a starting point for your own research.

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If you are you on statins to lower your cholesterol, how much did your doctor talk to you about the side effects of statins or cholesterol meds in general? A while back a couple women in a forum I belong to were comparing their Statins stories. They gave me permission to share them here, and I thought it would be interesting if anyone else out there has also experienced side effects from these meds. If so, please comment below. Thank you!

  • Lisa: “My Dad had heart surgery (unnecessary, I believe) and now takes a host of anti-cholesterol, anti-depressant (because no cholesterol leads to no serotonin), blood-pressure lowering medications and on and on. He was relatively healthy before all this and took no medications. He looked vital and healthy. Today, 2 years after surgery it breaks my heart to say that he probably won't live another year, and he looks about 20 years older than his 70 years. Recently, when his leg was shaking so fiercely that he could barely walk and his hand developed a tremor, my mother finally listened to me and took him to the doctor to question whether he could be having a side effect from the cholesterol medication. The doctor took him off the medication, but “will monitor him very closely” and is looking into another med to replace it. Mind you, he never had high cholesterol. He has the “best” doctors in New York. I get furious when I consider all the physical damage that has happened to him in the name of heart health. He is also terrified of any fat, because of what the doctors tell him. I just heard yesterday that doctors will be recommending children as young as eight to start taking cholesterol-lowering medications as well as low fat milk for babies over one year. This is in response to the obesity epidemic. No mention of sugar or processed foods, as that would be messing with the almighty food industry. It's very difficult to watch family members you love listen to dietary advice that you know is hurting them. All you can do is give them information with love and hope that it makes sense to them.”
  • Patty: “When my husband was on Lipitor, his hip started going out on him with no warning. He had muscle aches and then he developed trigger finger, where one of his fingers would get “stuck” down and he would have to pull it upright (especially bad for a guitarist). He also seemed to be depressed and not quite as sharp-witted as usual.”

A family member emailed recently and asked this:

“In your research have you come across anything to help raise good cholesterol? The doc took me off my cholesterol drug and gave me 3 months to get the “good” number elevated. Yes, I have been exercising. Any other ideas?”

My response:

First, I'll answer your main question – how to get the good cholesterol number up: eat plenty of butter, coconut oil, and grass-fed meats (you'll need to find a good local farm), and avoid high fructose corn syrup and bad fats like the plague (vegetable oils, trans fats). Keep up the exercise, that's perfect. All this may not lower your “bad cholesterol” (LDL), but it will bring up your “good” cholesterol (HDL) enough so the doc will let you off the hook. That's how my numbers look anyway, and I've heard of many others with similar experiences. (See below for another excerpt on this topic.)

But if it were me, I wouldn't go back on those meds no matter the numbers – Statins turn many people into a patient FAST. Cholesterol is to our blood like white blood cells are to an infection – they rush to heal inflamed areas, just like WBC's do to heal an infection, but docs don't rush to lower WBC's. Instead they treat the cause – the infection itself!

Too many vegetable oils & trans fats (and other unhealthy habits) cause areas of inflammation, which is the real cause of heart disease. Good fats HEAL.

Don't believe me though, I wouldn't blame you when your doc says the opposite! I hope you'll research it more on your own. Read some of these healthy fats posts and see what you think. I know this is a “hard pill to swallow” after years of being told saturated fats were the bad guy, but maybe start with this one, to see how that myth took hold.

Feel free to tell me if you think this is a bunch of crap, I can take it. Besides, it will help me answer others better if you honestly share your thoughts. And it wasn't very long ago that I was right with you, anyway.

She replied saying that she was going off Statins for just that reason, she was beginning to feel very old.

“They made me ache so bad I felt 90 and could hardly get out of a chair. I have noticed a huge difference since going off the meds, I can actually still bend my fingers in the evening without pain and I can get out of a chair and start right out walking at a normal pace, not like an old lady.”

Read this excerpt from an interview Dr. Eades did with the maker of the movie, Fat Head:

Q: As you explain to the viewers near the end of the film, I encouraged you to try a high-fat, very low-carb diet to see what would happen with your lipids. You went on what you called a “saturated-fat pigout” for a month, and your total cholesterol went down and your HDL went up, as I predicted. But you didn't mention what happened with your weight during that month. Did you gain or lose?

A: Yes, after our first interview, you told me off-camera that I could prove to myself that the Lipid Hypothesis was wrong, and I did, to my great relief. To tell you the truth, I was kind of sweating it out, waiting for the lab results to come back. I believed what you were telling me, but after a month of eating burgers and steaks and bacon and eggs, there was part of me wondering if I was going to get back a lipid panel that would just say “You're going to die” across the top. If my cholesterol numbers had gone all out of whack, it wouldn't have done very much for the premise of my film. But as you predicted, the numbers all improved.

To answer your question, I lost two pounds during that month. That doesn't sound like much, but I was eating a lot of high-fat, high-calorie food, and I wasn't exercising much because I was swamped with work, so the fact that I lost any weight at all impressed me.

I'd love to hear if you've had similar conversations? How did you respond?

More you might like:

  • Have you seen this one?  Should you take statins after a heart attack?
  • Do statins make you stupid?

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Comments

  1. John K says

    January 30, 2013 at 10:10 AM

    I used to be on crestor for 5 years and I am not the type of person that is bothered by any drugs. But after 5 years of Chrestor and Proscar for my prostrate I felt like I was not only ready to die but wanted to because of all the pain I decided to do research on all the side effects of these drugs and stopped everything. I felt better immediately. I would rather die from the high cholesterol than the drugs.

    Reply
  2. KitchenKop says

    December 17, 2009 at 6:22 PM

    Jennifer,

    Which links aren’t working? I looked and couldn’t find any that were broken.

    The Protein Power websites (Drs. Eades) have great information about fats and they’re not connected with Weston A. Price. There are many more good sources now than in recent years, but that’s the first that comes to mind. Sources for the “other side” are not difficult to find – just talking with your doctor is one way to hear the mainstream advice on saturated fats. Or the AHA is another one. (In your comment above, did you mean that you’re trying to convince your husband that the MD is NOT all-knowing?)

    Kelly

    Reply
  3. Jennifer says

    December 17, 2009 at 9:51 AM

    Kelly, the two links in the below paragraph are not working. Can you direct me to the pages another way? I think I’ve read most of your “fat” posts but I”m trying to convince my husband that the MD does mean all-knowing. Also, besides Weston Price what are some other outside sources that you use for your research. It’s too hard to filter when you just google something. Also, what are some sources for the ‘otherside’ that you read as well.

    Jennifer

    Reply
  4. Kelly says

    February 21, 2009 at 2:14 AM

    There’s now a section just on cholesterol at this post:
    https://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/08/healthy-fats-oils.html

    Be sure to read more than just my site, do lots of research so you can be totally comfortable with your decisions. Read both “sides” so you get the full picture before you decide. 🙂

    Take care,
    Kelly

    Reply
  5. Katrinad says

    February 20, 2009 at 9:12 AM

    Wow!! That is really amazing! It’s more about numbers than people’s actual health. Unreal!

    I really need to learn and understand more this whole cholesterol thing. I have avoided going to the dr because I am not willing to listen to another lecture about my weight (I’m a size 6-8 but because of my muscle mass, I weigh a HECK of lot more than I look like I weigh)–the military LOVES to send people to their dietitians. *sigh* I have to sit through lectures on low fat milk, etc….. I HATE it….if my cholesterol is high then it’s even worse….. I just need to have some solid answers tucked away for when I’m interrogated. 😉

    Reply
  6. Kelly says

    February 19, 2009 at 11:35 PM

    Hey, that’s another reason to take fermented Cod liver oil – it’s also got CoQ10!

    Katrina, Sally Fallon said that Mary Enig once overheard people arguing in the hall about what the official

    Reply
  7. vehementflame says

    February 19, 2009 at 11:02 PM

    Thanks for the post.Needed this info right now.

    Reply
  8. nonegiven says

    February 19, 2009 at 11:41 AM

    Statins deplete CoQ10, which we make less of as we age anyway. Your relative should take at least 300mg/day CoQ10 to help heal her muscle tissue. Your heart is a muscle, also.
    The cutting edge of cholesterol research is particle size and number, a marker for the safe large fluffy LDL particles is your trigycerides divided by HDL. The lower the ratio, the better.
    https://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/23/11/1679
    Some saturated fats have no effect on LDL, I believe the largest component of coconut oil, lauric acid is one that only helps HDL, other saturated fats do increase LDL but they increase it by making more large fluffy particles. The small, dense, easily oxidized (dangerous) LDL particles are made from carbs, especially refined carbs.

    Reply
  9. Katrinad says

    February 19, 2009 at 8:55 AM

    This is so interesting–I was actually going to ask you about all of this and voila! You were reading my mind, Kelly.

    Yesterday I got into a good conversation with a good friend of mine who absolutely eats hardly any fat at all because high cholesterol runs in her family and she feels she HAS to eat that way to avoid heart disease. She was actually able to lower it by 60 points from a 260. I cannot argue with those numbers although I don’t know the ratio of LDL to HDL on her. I didn’t even think to ask. I have NO idea what mine is. I do know, though, as I told her, that my dad had a stroke with LOW cholesterol….. So there are really no guarantees, I suppose.

    Is it just me or is it SO hard to be deprogrammed at times? Do you think that what the dr’s tell you your cholesterol needs to be is actually TOO low for health? (I think I already know the answer to this one. 😉 )

    Reply
  10. Kelly says

    February 18, 2009 at 10:40 PM

    Paula, thanks for the reminder, I just added it to the post!

    BTW, LN, I really LOVE your metaphors! 🙂

    Reply
  11. Paula says

    February 18, 2009 at 2:18 PM

    I am surprised you did not mention coconut oil!! 🙂 Dr. Fife talks about it in his book on coconut oil being a miracle. I will tell you that high cholesterol runs in my family. Since doing coconut oil, my HDL (the “good” cholesterol) is so high that the doctors are not even concerned about my risk for heart disease and all that other junk. LOL! We use coconut oil for everything (cooking, baking, etc.). I don’t eat right (yet, I am working on it) and I don’t exercise (yet, again, working on that too). Just thought I would let you know that just this one step alone will help (for those who have difficult jumping in with both feet). 🙂

    Reply
  12. Local Nourishment says

    February 18, 2009 at 12:21 PM

    When three of us had to lift my mother out of the car one day because her muscles were too weak to support her, we were finally able to convince her to get off the Lipitor. Unfortunately, that was after the muscle weakness made her fall and break her hip, which she had to have replaced. She’s much stronger now, and can almost walk a mile at a time. The exercise improved her triglycerides, making her doctor leave her alone about the meds.

    Cholesterol is one set of numbers in a very complex system. Saying that a certain med will reduce your cholesterol, thereby preventing heart disease is like saying if we bail out just the auto industry we can prevent a full-scale depression. There are too many factors to look at three numbers we don’t even totally understand yet as the whole answer.

    Medical intervention breeds medical intervention. Sure, there might be a place somewhere for someone for these big guns, but let’s use the arrows and swords at our disposal (diet and exercise) before we go to war with an enemy we don’t understand!

    Signed LN, master of the mixed metaphor

    Reply
  13. Kelly says

    February 18, 2009 at 8:42 AM

    Hi Mary,

    I have heard that a glass of red wine can be beneficial, but it was always because of the flavanoids/anti-oxidants in the wine, I hadn’t heard specifically that it can change cholesterol numbers – although all that is probably connected. Interesting.

    Reply
  14. Mary says

    February 18, 2009 at 12:51 AM

    Hey, this is just off the cuff, totally not researched personally, but our family Dr. recommends red wine, one glass a night, to raise good cholesterol. He thinks all my high fat/good fat talk is a little loony, but he is good to let people make their own choices. He’d be the first to admit that conventional medicine knows little. But I he has said that he drinks a glass of red wine each night and his good cholesterol has improved. I wish he’d try good fats, too!

    Reply

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