I am frustrated with a friend about exercise, diet, high cholesterol and science.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

Anti cholesterol drugs, statin drugs, work very effectively at reducing LDL and increasing HDL, which is what you want.

My friend had total 254, 180 LDL and 40 HDL, 8 months of good diet and exercise and now it is HIGHER by a few points and he refuses to get the meds.

In fact says he will backpack all summer and that will make it better


Cant get thru his thick skull...good friend, liberal too.

[wildeyed]

1. Frustrating.

That kind of thing can be genetic. My blood pressure is borderline, even though I workout six days a week and subsist primarily on green smoothies and lentils. My Dad's is too, and he runs marathons.

Oh well. Maybe he will change his mind after the summer if it doesn't get better. What does his doctor say?

[noamnety]

2. At one point my doctor tried to put me on statins

After doing some reading I opted out, and wanted 3 months to make the changes through diet.

I had been eating healthy in a low-carb way, dropping weight, working out, probably the healthiest I felt in over a decade. But the cholesterol had jumped up. During my three month experiment, I swapped bacon and eggs for oatmeal for breakfast, and swapped salad heavy with meats for vegetarian lunches.

At exactly 3 months, I was retested and all my numbers were back in the "optimal" range.

I'm glad I figured out what worked for me - I'm so much happier doing it this way than taking pills every day. I hope your friend can experiment with diet a bit more, maybe work with a nutritionist if need be, and find an effective solution that he is equally happy with.

[fasttense]

3. I'm not convinced modern medicine really understand cholesterol and fats in diets

And I think statins are more dangerous than today's average doctor understands.

The scientific evidence that either high number is good or bad for you is minimal. And recent studies indicate very little correlation between high cholesterol and death rates. Yes, hyper-cholesterol, in the 300 range, can be damaging. But high normal range does NOT correlate to higher death rates.

Doctors are not very well educated in nutrition. My sister the doctor says she had one 8 hour class in Med School on nutrition.

[Citrus]

4. I agree about statins

Drugs aren't always the answer. Each person has to find what works for her/him and what s/he is comfortable with. Doctors are too quick to write a prescription rather than do some actual research about the stuff they're advocating. It seems to be easiest and fastest. Nutrition, including supplementation, can work seeming miracles.

[Major Nikon]

5. The question that remains about cholesterol is whether it's a problem or a symptom

We know that high cholesterol is associated with heart disease. What we don't know is whether high cholesterol causes heart disease or whether it's the other way around. Since treating high cholesterol doesn't seem to have much effect on heart disease, this leads one to believe high cholesterol is more of a symptom than a cause.