Doctor says..."take a statin"
Question from Eric: On April 1, 2006, I took a two-week break from Cholest-Natural. When the break was over, I resumed taking two soft gels per day. A check-up on April 19 showed my cholesterol at 198, LDL at 142, HDL at 32, and triglicerides at 121. My doctor advised me to begin taking a statin medication.
I rejected this advice, explaining that I had recently ended a two-week break from taking a supplement that had been very effective in maintaining these indicators within a healthy range in the past. I said that I expected these indicators to return to a healthy range now that I had resumed taking Cholest-Natural. I also gave her a copy of the list of ingredients.
Three months later, on July 18, a recheck showed my cholesterol at 218, LDL at 148, HDL at 41, Triglicerides at 144, C-Reactive Protein at 1.7, and Homocysteine at 8.9. My doctor was alarmed and urged me to begin taking a statin. I agreed to a 40 mg. per day dosage of Zocor, because it has the longest track record of all statins on the market and its
side-effects are well documented.
In addition, I began taking four Cholest-Natural soft gels per day and, based on one of your newsletter articles, 60 mgs. of CoQ10 per day.
Two months later, on Sept. 8, a recheck showed my cholesterol at 163, LDL at 108, HDL at 37, and Triglicerides at 88. My doctor is pleased. However, I am not thrilled about taking a statin.
Warren, based on your experience and knowledge, what should my next steps be to get off this statin and are 60 mg. of CoQ10 per day enough or should I take more? I am continuing to take four Cholest-Natural soft gels per day. When I ended my two-week break, should I have taken four soft gels per day for awhile? If so, for how long?
Thank you for your excellent products and your valuable advice.
Answer from: Warren
Quite frankly I think that your Doctor was being alarmist. The second lot of readings which got her so concerned...Total Cholesterol at 218, LDL at 148 and HDL at 41 is significantly better than your previous readings at a total cholesterol of 198. I am surprised that she didn't appreciate the significance of this.
Even so, the first readings were nothing to panic about and in my opinion did not warrant considering a statin drug.
The reason why your second lot of readings are so much better is because your LDL had hardly moved but your HDL had gone up by 28%!! This is excellent.
It is not the total cholesterol that is important but rather the HDL and LDL ratios.
Your latest readings are certainly a lot lower but it is a concern that your HDL has dropped back. On the other hand your triglycerides have also fallen back a lot. Combined with your good levels of C-Reactive Protein and your Homocysteine you are in pretty good overall shape and as I said in my opinion I feel that a statin is not warranted.
I can understand your concern about being on it as it will not be doing your liver any favors. It is good to see that you are taking CoQ10, that is a must. 60mgs a day should be enough if it a good quality one.
I am not keen about you remaining on 4 softgels of our Cholest-Natural for any extended period of time, particularly on top of the statin. I would suggest that you cut it back to 2 per day from now on.
Are you taking the Omega 3? If not ours at least someone else's! This is very important particularly for your triglycerides. I see that your triglycerides have dropped back a lot, which is also good. This is likely to be from the Cholest-Natural not from the statin. We recently made a minor modifcation to the Cholest-Natural to make it more effective for triglycerides. Nonetheless I would still suggest that you take an Omega 3 supplement in addition.
With the savings that you make on the smaller dose of the Cholest-Natural I would start taking Total Balance Men's plus if you are not already taking it. This has a lot of good healthy heart nutrients in it.
With regard to getting off the statin, you can't do this cold turkey. I would suggest that you tell your Doctor that you are not comfortable being on that medication and you want to get off it. Given that you have no other indicators of cardiovascular disease she should work with you to achieve that.
However, bear in mind that you will likely get a 'spike' in your levels when you start reducing it. My suggestion would be to talk to the Doctor about cutting the rate back to 20mgs per day for a month and then 10mgs per day for another month...along with the 2 softgels of CHolest-Natural a day...and then have another test.
Also, try to reduce your intake of meat as much as possible and be particularly wary of any processed foods and naturally transfats. Also try to avoid or at least keep dairy foods to the minimum as well. This will help your cholesterol and of course your overall health.
Your objective should be to get off both Cholest-Natural and the statin drug with the emphasis on the statin drug. The Total Balance will help keep your cholesterol at healthy levels once you have acheived them.
Reader Comments (10)
There are a lot of good manufacturers of CoQ10 in the market place, but as I mentioned in the earlier post make sure that you the COQ10 in a sublingual or enteric coated form for best efficacy.
We will shortly be releasing a new heart/artery product for helping 'clean out' the arteries. We will follow the first version with another in which we will incorporate CoQ10 so those people whose Doctor insists they stay on a statin will be able to get the benefits of this new product and for a minimal amount of extra cost use the version with CoQ10.
This will be an effective option for those people who are using the 'artery cleansing' product.
The reason for this is that the Total Balance supplement contains precursors that will enable your body to produce adequate CoQ10.
You only need to take additional CoQ10 if you are on a statin drug, THis is because the mechanisim of the statin drug is that it inhibits the manufacture of cholesterol by the liver and that same mechanisim manufactures CoQ10. So, when you reduce the manufacture of cholesterol with a statin drug you also reduce the manufacture of CoQ10 which is why you need to supplement with it when taking a statin.
If I would you I would up my daily intake of Total Balance from 4 to 6 tabs.
Back in March of this year my bloodwork indicated:
Total Cholesterol=257, Triglycerides=103, HDL=62, LCL=174, Ratio is 4.1, TSH w/Reflex to FT4=5.08 (T3 was not indicated). My physican said that I needed to start as statin drug as soon as possible. I refused, believing that I could improve those numbers myself. I began flax, magnesium, calcium, zinc, niacin, potassium, not many fried foods, etc.
Believing that I had done a good/fair job of this, I decided to get my blood drawn to witness my results. (follow)
Total Cholesterol=267, Triglycerides=122, HDL=65, LCL=178, Ratio is still 4.1, T3=108, TSH w/Reflext to FT4=3.63.
The only thing I can see (which I really don't know much about, is a drop in the FT4. I don't know if this is good or bad.
What do I do now? My physican has called to schedule an appointment to discuss the side-effects of statins.
I look forward to your input.
Given your excellent HDL level and the ratio and your other ‘markers’ I certainly don’t think that a statin drug should even be a considered option. A couple of important markers for potential heart ‘events’ are homocysteine and in particular C-Reactive Protein which measures inflammation in the blood.
Many scientists believe C-Reactive Protein to be a better indicator of a potential heart attack than cholesterol. I would suggest that you have both of the above tests done next time.
I am not surprised that the supplements did not have any impact on your cholesterol. Niacin can help but only in very high prescription doses.
Diet can help but to have any real impact you have to be VERY strict, and virtually become a vegetarian and eliminate all processed foods and avoid all trans/hydrogenated fats/oils.
What would I do if I were in your situation?
Three things:
1. I would reduce substantially my intake of animal protein and significantly increase my intake of fresh vegetables, and of course make sure I didn’t eat anything out of a packet.
2. I would take a specialty supplement designed to tackle cholesterol on multiple fronts. In that regard I would use our own Xtend-Life Cholest-Natural. I doubt that you will find a better one anywhere, or one which will give better value for money. If you purchase Cholest-Natural and you find a better supplement let me know and I will arrange a full refund. (We are always reviewing our formulas to ensure that they are the best).
Anyway, take it for 60 days and then retest. If your cholesterol levels have not improved it would indicate that your body is genetically programmed for high cholesterol, but provided that your other markers, trigylcerides, homocysteine, and C-Reactive Protein are all good I would not worry about trying to force it down to an unnatural level for your body.
Here is the info on the Cholest-Natural http://www.xtend-life.com/product_detail.php?product_id=13&lang_id=1&menu_id=15
3. Take a high quality Omega 3 supplement. Ours is one of the purest but irrespective whether you use our’s or someone else’s, please use one. These will help lower your triglycerides and help your overall cardiovascular system. Good for your brain to.
In summary I would do everything I could to avoid going on to a statin drug. On the page that I referred you to above you will find a link to a website site dedicated to statins and their side effects. Might be worth reading it!
Good luck
Joe