I was worried when I saw you replied, and it's nice to see we agree. T2K's response is, as usual, trite and condescending. Most people have been terribly mislead by large food companies, the government, their medical team, the education system and society as a whole. What do hospitals provide as a breakfast food? Corn flakes, orange juice and white toast--one may as well mainline liquid sugar into their veins.
Diabetes runs in our family. My father died 2 months after turning 70 over 25 years ago. I was trending towards diabetes, and despite being "fairly healthy" for most of my adult life, I needed to take a deep dive and a close look at the foods we kept in our home and were eating. We only eat whole foods now (lots of protein from fish and poultry, vegetables, low sugar fruits such as blueberries, lots of fiber from natural sources, fresh brewed tea, and lots of water).
As I started with my redo of my diet, my old family doctor's first line for my high cholesterol was "take a statin." Nothing on diet. Just- you could lose some weight. There was candy in the waiting room of the doctor's office. 🤦♂️Hospitals have soda and candy machines all over the place. So do schools (that seems to be changing a little bit). But Kraft foods recently got a huge contract to serve that garbage lunchables in schools. Garbage is being kind.
Back to me. When I cleaned up my diet, the weight flew off. I experimented with my macros for protein/fat/fiber, and I found that saturated fat had a very bad impact on my cholesterol. By making some changes in my diet, I lowered my cholesterol by 30-40%. I still have some work to do. But my insulin sensitivity/resistance numbers improved markedly too.
Back to statins. As I went to a couple of different cardiologists, a lipidologist and gained a lot of information from a few lipidologists who are very active online, I became very steeped in the two main mechanisms of how the body produces and absorbs cholesterol, raising the values when you get your lipid readings. I found that there is a test called a cholesterol balance test that can be used to measure phytosterol concentrations. I learned that I was an overabsorber, and that in this case, statins may not have much of an impact on lowering my cholesterol. I started taking ezetimibe, which acts in the digestive tract, not the liver, which is a different pathway than the statin works. I also got the OK to take an herbal supplement called berberine, which is approved in Europe for lowering cholesterol (but of course, in the US many doctors laugh at herbal supplements). Berberine functions as a PCSK9 inhibitor. PSCK9i's are avaialbe in the US as a very expensive injetctable pharma (surprise again) for about $500/month. I will be getting a new lipid panel soon.
I recognize that for some patients, statins are beneficial. But a lot of people experience bad side effects. There are statins that can avoid these side effects. But there are a lot of other alternatives to statins, and some are cost prohibitive. The medical community (e.g., my doctor) however, tends to think every cholesterol problem is a nail and a statin is the only tool avaiable to treat it.
