Cholesterol farce

[Leo41]

For several years, my LDL hovered around 160 (with <130 listed as optimal), but my HDL was always in the 80s (with >40 an ideal), so I was never worried at all, but ALL my doctors (primary, endo, cardiologist) tried to sell me on statins. Of course, I refused, and they backed off.

With my healthy low carb eating (and having my hypothyroid finally properly medicated), my LDL has gone down to 130 (sometimes less), and my doctors have finally stopped bothering me.

But last week, my primary doctor ran some blood tests and included the CRP--the test of inflammation that is supposed to be a much stronger indicator of cardiac issues than cholesterol. The range is 1-10, with <1 indicating LOW cardiac risk, 1-3 average, 3-10 high. My number was .9 (LOW). I checked back on a blood test done in 2005 (when my LDL was 'high', but I didn't know about the CRP), and I had the same low risk number.

Imagine if I'd started statins with such a low risk simply because that's what the doctors were pushing? I like my doctors and believe they were sincere; they've just been totally brainwashed on this cholesterol issue. They are trained to "do" something, so if they think they can 'help' by prescribing, they are much too quick to do so. They also usually run the cholesterol tests but NOT the CRP, although even I know [now] that the CRP is more significant.

But I don't think that big pharma has a drug yet to lower CRP--the usual 'treatment' is diet and exercise, so there's no real interest in that right now!

[nonstickpam107]

I've only found three doctors out of 93 that actually understood that having under/untreated hypothyroidism (specifically Hashimoto's in women) raises cholesterol. My total cholesterol at beginning of treatment for hypothyroidism (both T4 AND T3 replaced, not just T4) was 322. Yep. I weighed 267 lbs. I lost the first 50 lbs. on lowcarb and my cholesteral fell to 296 (my docs wanted me on statins..not my thyroid doc, he felt that he could bring that number way down with thyroid hormone).

A year later? Cholesterol was total 128, triglys were 27. Voila. As my FT3 increased (on Armour) my cholesterol fell. Doctors should skip the statins and do FT's and TPO antibodies in women FIRST. Seeing how two out of every ten women has Hashimoto's.

And my ANA was high..not from rheumatic disease, but from thyroid peroxidase antibody levels (they didn't test THOSE!) and my CRP was low.

Pam