For the past 30 years, I been tracking my blood chemistry and keeping my records. Ever so slowly, the levels of cholesterol have progressively risen. My blood chemistry records go back to 1973 when cholesterol wasn’t broken into the two parts: happy high (good) and lousy low (bad). At that time, at the age of 26 my reading was 135 mg/dL. During the intervening years, I trained and raced some of the hardest races in the world winning the Western States 100 Miler, the American River 50, the Iditashoe 100 miler and the women’s team division in Race Across America. And, my cholesterol kept rising. When I passed through menopause at the age of 50, my cholesterol kept rising. When it hit 260 mg/dL my Kaiser doctor said I want you, Sally, to take medication for your high cholesterol and I said, “Dr. Gonzales, you are right that I need to do something to reverse this, but taking a prescription drug isn’t the right thing to do for me or for Americans. I can figure this out and fix it. He disagreed with me saying, “I expected that answer from you.”
I took Dr. Gonzales reliance on medication as a challenge. I extend it to you as a challenge. There are many ways to lower cholesterol and I challenged myself to find one that worked for me. I started by asking my friends how they succeeded at lowering their cholesterol. My sister-in-law, Kathleen Edwards said that she ate oatmeal every morning for a year and her cholesterol which was slightly over 300 mg/dL dropped down to 207 mg/dL. Another friend took grapeseed extract (GSE) which is made from small seeds of red grapes the same kind of grapes used to make wine. It worked for him. I choose another track drop my body weight by 10% and cut out all animal fats. According to my reading of the literature, reducing all saturated fats from your diet and lowering your percent body fat were the two most aggressive acts that I could take. What happened with my weight loss and nutritional changes? I dropped 14 pounds of weight didn’t eat cheese or other animal products for eight months and went back to have my cholesterol checked. I was expecting great results but I soon discovered that I had failed to make a difference. My cholesterol dropped 5 mg/dL, a measly5 points. All of that effort for a 1% improvement is failure.
What next? Another 8 months this time with a new treatment strategy that I created large doses of vitamins and minerals especially niacin and red rice yeast, both known to help with cholesterol. Daily, I took my cocktail of vitamins and minerals like a religious practice. Niacin was hard on me and caused flushing so I cut back the dose. I returned to eating some dairy products and gained 5 pounds back during the next 8-month trial period. With great anticipation, I headed back to Kaiser leaving my blood sample behind and my hopes high. This time the results came as an email go on line and check out the results rather than receiving the results in the postal mail. I won. The new total cholesterol number: 217 mg/dL. This is a 25% improvement in 8 months.
The take away lesson from this is for me is that we are all different. My body did not respond to removing saturated fats from my diet or decreasing my body fat. Your body may respond to this or to grapeseeds or oatmeal. My body responded to vitamins and minerals including an emphasis on niacin (a vitamin B) and red rice yeast.
What next? You guessed it right another 8 months of the same vitamin cocktail to see if I can break through 200 mg/dL without any pharmaceutical solutions. I challenge you to get regular check ups and to explore health solutions that work for you. Don’t give up if your solution doesn’t at first work. Rather, continue to explore your physiology and find what does work for you.
Note: My Kaiser Dr. Gonzales just emailed me the following, “Sally, You did well. You will notice that your lipoprotein A is elevated, this is an independent risk factor, and it will not vary much. I know your feelings about medications, but I hope you are at least on one baby aspirin per day. And my answer to Dr. Gonzales is that I’ll now start to work on a strategy to lower my lipoprotein A. Aspirin seems harmless enough but I don’t want to take it for the rest of my life. Thanks, Dr. Gonzales, we make a good team!
I do have high cholesterol like you, Sally. Some of us don’t have a cholesterol problem because of diet — but because of genetics — could be why changing your diet had little effect. However, in one year I successfully lowered my LDL 20 points and raised my HDL 20 points. Although my total blood lipid level is above the recommended level (it’s 218), the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL now falls within the acceptable range for the first time in years — and my doctor finally stopped threatening me with statins. The lifestyle changes I incorporated to achieve these results include: switching from 1% milk to skim (I drink a lot of milk); taking numerous supplements daily — including garlic & cinnamon (but not red rice yeast — I will have to try that!); and drinking 1L most days of high-mineral-content naturally carbonated mineral water (e.g. Pellegrino, Gerolsteiner or Sanfaustino) — you can find info on this study by Googling cholesterol and “mineral water.” I did not change overall diet (other than the addition of mineral water) or exercise levels. The key to the study is high-mineral-content waters… so Perrier and many spring waters without naturally high mineral content have not demonstrated the same effect (the naturally occurring “bubbles” also seem to be key). Admittedly, downing a 1L bottle of Pellegrino every day is expensive (although I did just find Gerolsteiner at Trader Joe’s for around $1.10/bottle — bargain!) — but I would rather drink water than take a pill every day for the rest of my life. I’m due for another lipid panel in the spring; it is my hope that continued adherence to this regimen will result in continued lowered cholesterol — and no need for statins!
Good luck with your efforts, Sally. Thanks for letting us know what works for you.
I too have diligently tracked my cholesterol over 30+ years. It has varied from 100 to 260, presently 160-ish.
I too worried about it. No longer. Why? For several reasons.
One is that I got suspicious about the justification. I knew that people on cholesterol reducing drugs had increased suicide rates, calling in to doubt the very basis of lowering cholesterol.
It also finally dawned on me (tho’ I don’t know why it took so long) that the argument that too much cholesterol sort of clogs up the arteries just has to be nonsense. If it was this, then the capillaries would clog up first – and they don’t (you’d notice the gangrene), it’s the main arteries.
Statins, the drug of choice for cholesterol reduction, depletes Co-enzyme Q10 – necessary for a healthy heart. A very good friend of mine died after being so prescribed – from a heart attack.
During these years, having bought the orthodox theory, I’ve measured and attempted to improve my cholesterol readings. Some I still accept, particularly the work by Dr Barry Sears. I even went so far as to buy my own cholesterol measuring kit. What I have noticed is that my cholesterol can vary markedly over a short period of time.
I now know that that is is known that serum cholesterol can vary dramatically over a short time (like blood pressure and heart rate and insulin etc) and so any measurement is probably useless for determining health changes; that most cholesterol is generated by the body, not due to diet; and that cholesterol is essential.
And then I stumbled upon two research papers which undermined the whole cholesterol argument and convinced me:
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/fats_phony.html
Excerpt:
Cholesterol and Heart Disease–
A Phony Issue
By Mary Enig, PhD
“Blood cholesterol levels between 200 and 240 mg/dl are normal. These levels have always been normal. In older women, serum cholesterol levels greatly above these numbers are also quite normal, and in fact they have been shown to be associated with longevity. Since 1984, however, in the United States and other parts of the western world, these normal numbers have been treated as if they were an indication of a disease in progress or a potential for disease in the future.
As a result of some of this misinformation, which was purposefully planted by the leadership of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1984, many hundreds of thousands of people are treated with expensive medications to prevent the development of a non-existent illness.”
And, in a surprising place (for me):
http://www.uk-muscle.co.uk/nutrition-diet-articles/4029-atkins-what-joke-con.html
Excerpt:
“Investigators have shown that this change to Western and urban eating patterns (in Japan – more total fat, saturated fatty acids and cholesterol, animal fats and protein, and less rice and vegetables), departing as it does from centuries old traditions, has been accompanied by a general lowering of blood pressure and a large decline in the incidence of stroke deaths and cerebral haemorrhage between the 1960s and the 1980s. They attribute this decline to an increase in blood cholesterol levels over the period. Supporting their findings were the results of a follow-up of 350,000 men screened for the MRFIT in the United States that showed that the risk of death from cerebral haemorrhage in middle-aged men was six times greater if they had low blood cholesterol levels.”
So Sally, relax. Don’t worry about your overall cholesterol reading. Just keep doing what you probably already do: exercising, eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies, taking a few supplements (especially Omega3), staying optimistic – and, of course, no smoking, little/no sugar, small doses/no refined carbs.
Sally, maybe you give policosanol a try. It is a mixture of fatty substances isolated and purified from the wax of sugar cane. In studies using a daily dose of 5-20 mg. (taken at night) poiicosanol yielded noticeable results within the first 6-8 weeks of use. At a dose of 10 mg. at night, LDL cholesterol level typically were reduced by 20-25% in the first 4 weeks. At a 20 mg. does the levels dropped by 25-30%. HDL levels typically increase by 15-25% in only 2 months of use. It also exhibits favorable effects on triglyceride levels. In addition, it protects the arteries by preventing excessive platlet aggregation without affecting coagulation, prevents smooth muscle cell proliferation into the lining of the artery, and acts as an antioxidant in preventing LDL oxidation and the subsequent artery damage. As a result of new research and studies it has now been discovered that inflammation in the body (as indicated by the C-reactive protien [C-RP] blood test) is a greater risk factor than elevated cholesterol in cardiovascular disease and the resulting strokes and heart attacks. In fact, half of all people that have heart attacks have low cholsterol levels. As an added bonus policosanol is inexpensive and is available in combination with red rice yeast. To find this combo product, go to my website and click the “buy supplements” link, this will take you the website of the company that manufactures it. The second link on my website has information on studies that prove how phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables can significantly reduce risk factors for cardivascular disease as well as cancer and more.
Wishing you best of health and admiration for going the natural route!
Sally,
I am curious as to what your HDL and LDL readings were. My HDL is over 100 and my total has always been around 240. I have read that the total cholesterol is not as important as the LDL reading which is the low density part.
Beth
You asked the right quesiton, Beth. Total cholesterol is just one part and what is important is the franctionalized cholesterol. Unfortunatly my bad (low) is bad and my good (high) is not very good:
Component               Value    Flag           Low High Unit
CHOLESTEROLÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 217Â Â Â 45 mg/dL
LDL CALCULATEDÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 136 H
Hello Sally,
What a wonderful post to read. I too hover in that 200-to-240 zone, and though I don’t feel I’m at death’s door, I would love to nudge it down a bit nonetheless. How did you determine your magic cocktail of vitamins and minerals? Do you have a web/book/article reference for how I might adjust my daily supplements to be more cholesterol-trimming?
I love the work you do!
Margaret
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