Hi all, i have my screening report today and discover that my cholesterol level is at super high level at 8.1, doctor tell me that for my level, changing of lifestyle or food will not help much ady, I need to start take medicine. May I know how true is the statement, is it really nth can be done except taking medication?

You dont trust your Dr? Usually for chronic diseases like yours, diabetes, hypertension.. lifestyle and diet usually only helps at the initial stage and when your readings are mild/borderline. Else the only way is medications. I can see you dont trust this dr, why not go to another specialist, he/she will probably say the same.

bring the report go other specialist maybe he/she can advice u...

8.1 is total cholesterol?

Mine was 7.0 last year. Since then I took red yeast rice (capsules) and in this year also started to consume BG22 oat bran (powder). In the last medical check-up, total cholesterol level dropped to 5.5.

You may want to consider some extreme diets like keto diet...

Caution:
Too much red yeast rice can be bad for your liver.

This post has been edited by river.sand: Sep 29 2022, 06:03 PM

Your age? >40 go for calcium score test as well

People will laugh at me but I'll offer my input

Cholesterol thing can be reversed. Nothing such as chronic

What you really need to do is a change of lifestyle now. But your 8.1 is accumulative of what your eating lifestyle is for the past 20 yrs. Can you change now

Dr see 100s of clients everyday. They gives quick solution to treat symptoms. Not fix problems. Pharmacy company and Dr are symbiosis relationships. They leech on one another.

Depend on drugs forever. They love most. If whole 33 mil Malaysians can do that. Hooray. When do you hear dr really cares about healing and not about treating symptoms.

They're also dr who believe in natural healing. You need to find them and give you advice

What helps to reduce cholesterol

Every morning drink phyllium husk. Or do that before you go to bed

Drink beta glucan drink

Eat oat for breakfast

Do that for 1 mth. Recheck cholesterol level. Also check your bad cholesterol. Good one is fine. You need to address the bad cholesterol.

Start walking 5km everyday too

No cooking using oil for now. Use steam method

No fried stuff

More veg.

Most are common sense but few get it.

faster way is to take medications. also need now to watch what you eating. do some exercise.

Is that ldl or hdl that’s high?

How old are you?

Family history of high cholesterol?

Race?

Doctor a GP/physician/cardiologist?

I would suggest if it was a GP, you go to a physician and then a cardiologist first before taking meds for this.

Also before going on it, at least try a diet of oats, bananas and soy milk for 2 out of 3 meals for 6 weeks and exercise by brisk walking at least 40 mins per day. Make sure the oats is raw rather than instant oats.

Many doctors don't know about lifestyle part. Start doing intermittent fasting. Cut away your carbs that means rice, Nasi lemak. Roti canai, mee goreng. Mihun goreng, kuih. Exercise moderate intensity at least 3x a week (skipping rope, walking up stairs, Squats, weight lifting -get some weights and lift them at home, jumping jacks etc)

Eat one avocado a day. Eat oats everyday after fasting. Avocado is expensive but it works. You can get cheap ones from indon sellers.

If you drink beer remove it. That means no more happy hours/Friday drinking. Fatty liver disease can cause the liver to be less efficient.

Go back after 3 months and see the result.

This post has been edited by Ramjade: Sep 29 2022, 05:57 PM

This👍

First things first. Do you all know what is cholesterol?

LDL and HDL as their acronyms imply, are lipoproteins, NOT a cholesterol. Blaming LDL/HDL is like blaming ambulance for accidents on the road.

When you get the reading, what are they? Is it accompanied by other blood work, e.g. BP, triglyceride levels?

Most doctors are hacks, I've given up on them since 2021. They know lots about illness, but little about health. Their business is making sure you have symptoms to keep you going back to them.

This post has been edited by MAGAMan-X: Sep 29 2022, 06:02 PM

And i watch youtube, most important thing is to keep sugar level down.

Everything else is secondary.

Avoid the medication, u will forever depend on that medication. Go for healthy diet. Eat more vege, fruits, grain, high fiber food, white meat, no red meat, less sweet foods, less eat fried foods and junk foods. Exercise more, get sweat more cos sweat can at least lower your bad cholestrol LDL. U need to start diet now cos that high cholestrol level can damage your kidney too. Drink more plain water everyday to flush out toxic in body. Drink lemon also good.
U still can drink and eat sweet but moderate, but since your cholestrol high better less than moderate 1st. U still need sweet for energy.

sometime cholestrol hike is normal, when body try to repair muscle it need to produce more cholestrol.
but when it happen constantly, thats the time you need to do something.

if you exercise alot, try rest for a few day and take your cholestrol reading again, you might see the reading drop.

This post has been edited by zerorating: Sep 29 2022, 06:20 PM

keto only make cholesterol worst

speaking from experience

u can cheat blood test, but u cannot cheat was was done inside....

Risk factors

Factors that can increase your risk of unhealthy cholesterol levels include:

Poor diet. Eating too much saturated fat or trans fats can result in unhealthy cholesterol levels. Saturated fats are found in fatty cuts of meat and full-fat dairy products. Trans fats are often found in packaged snacks or desserts.

Obesity. Having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater puts you at risk of high cholesterol
.
Lack of exercise. Exercise helps boost your body's HDL, the "good," cholesterol.

Smoking. Cigarette smoking may lower your level of HDL, the "good," cholesterol.

Alcohol. Drinking too much alcohol can increase your total cholesterol level.

Age. Even young children can have unhealthy cholesterol, but it's much more common in people over 40. As you age, your liver becomes less able to remove LDL cholesterol.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditi...es/syc-20350800

This post has been edited by Phoenix_KL: Sep 29 2022, 06:23 PM

Depends on what kind of fat you are taking. If olive oil and avocado no issue. If animal fat, sure.

U wont die in short time soon.

If u dont want to take medicine u can try to change ur lifestyle which including less carbs, less sugar, less salt, no smoking, no drinking, sleep early, go excercise.

Do it for 6 months do another test to check level.
If it goes down then continue and repeat.
If still same level or higher then no choice to take med

For a healthy diet AVOID fruits and grains and seed oils. Eat MORE meats, vegetables i guess it's OK if you want to eat it, but if not, you can skip.

What do you mean by "worse" cholesterol?

Animal fat is not an issue. Humans have been eating animal fat for hundreds of thousands of years.

You know what humans have only started eating in the last few decades? Refined carbs and seed oils, started somewhere around the 60's.

Guess what decade we started seeing increased instances of metabolic diseases?

Your cholesterol is TOTALLY reversible on a Whole Food Plant Based No Oil WFPB NO diet.

7 months ago, my cholesterol was 9.29



Thanks to WFPB no oil, it's now 3.4

1. eat less sugar
2. eat less processed meat/canned foods
3. eat less fried, low quality oil food
4. drink more water
5. drink way less sugary beverages
6. exercise more frequently
7. sleep around 7-8 hours per day

keep your discipline with these simple tips

Yes, total is 8.1. need to take this seriously now.

Triglycerides - 2.12
HDL - 1.31
non-HDL - 6.8
LDL - 6.41

Thanks for the advice, this is what i really wanna get advice from. as far as i know, cholesterol medicine need to take in a long period, possible for your whole life. i am just 35 and cant imagine that i need to take medicine for the rest of my life.

I am 35 years old Chinese. as far as I know, my family did not have history of high cholesterol, it is the health screening doctor that actually advice me to go for medication.

thanks for the advice, gonna start change my life style and food starting this moment. i cannot imagine that i will need to take the medicine to control the cholesterol for the rest of my life.

I do know that there is so called "good" and "bad" cholesterol. but i only know which is good and not good today. below is my result for cholesterol.

Triglycerides - 2.12
HDL - 1.31
non-HDL - 6.8
LDL - 6.41

Thanks for the advice. as I know, the cholesterol medicine need to be taken in long period, possibly the rest of the life, that's why I treat medicine treatment is the last resort if i have tried everything.

Thanks a lot for the info, I think I hit the top 3, haha... need to take it seriously and start to change my diet and lifestyle ady.

Thanks for the suggestion, this seems to be a good approach for me, appreciate it.

Wow, that's an impressive result! thanks a lot for the sharing, it did encouraged me! gonna go ahead and study the method.

can share what you usually eat then? if eating out, what would you order?

Dude, I suggest like others have suggested you take steps to do something about it first.

Chinese as a whole don't have history genetic issues that brings about high cholesterol levels and if you don't have a family history then there's zero reason to go on meds at 35, I'd suggest you control your diet and get walking a bit more as it'd be a very rare situation that your condition requires medication.

+100

Also

You may start take salad with hard oil egg, steam chicken breast, steam fish, and low sugar fruits. 12 hr puasa is a great start.
Walk at least 10k steps per day.

It will be very hard for the first week, but eventually you will get used to it.

Good luck.

Total cholesterol is not the issue but your triglycerides/HDL ratio which I think is a better indication of potential heart issues.

There is much more evidence of refined sugar causing heart related problems rather saturated fats from meat

You need to consider other factors like weight, bmi, waist circumference, blood pressure.

How is your workouts like?

Have your weight, blood pressure also reduced?

I am practicing 70% WFPB NO diet calorie deficit and doing strength workouts

There are no bad cholesterol. They all serve a function in your body. If you very low cholesterol levels, your body will suffer. The problem is people have been brainwashed to think cholesterol is bad, but your body makes cholesterol, does it mean the body is trying to kill itself?

Your triglyceride levels may be a little on the high side, now this one is a bit more of a concern, because high triglycerides is a sign that you're overeating, most likely on carbs (because it is very difficult to overeat on fat). The carbs raised your blood glucose and your body eventually converts them to glycerol, and then binds with 3 fatty acids to form triglycerides, which is then used as storage energy. The high LDL levels form an unhealthy relationship with triglycerides (you CAN have high LDLs with low triglyceride levels).

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia...&contentid=2967

Watch the video I posted from the previous page about cholesterol. It quite clearly illustrates the connection between oxidized LDL (the actual bad cholesterol) and heart disease. It will probably be the most useful 30 minutes you spend this week.

You prefer to listen to ktards instead of your doctor?

If you need second opinion, why not consult another doctor or two?

Wow... good one!

My total cholesterol was 7.9. 4 months and it's down to 6.5...

Try consuming this. Alot of people I know swear by this:

https://shopee.com.my/Nutrilicious-Ginger-G...a7-2d5d6a8f1539

Eat vegan and don't eat meat better for health

Fruits and grains is ok actually. Most of time i eat less sweet fruits. This my personal experience actually. Few years back my cholestrol above 7.3. I diet eat high fiber bread, grains, white meat ok but NO RED MEAT. 5 months later i blood test again my cholestrol go down 5.4. Til today i maintain that healthy lifestyle.

Depend how you cook. Vegetarian food could be more unhealthy than meat.

Once u take the high cholestrol medicine, means the rest of your life u have to take it. Once u stop your cholestrol will back up high.
Thats why go for diet, diet kaw kaw, avoid cholestrol medicine.
Your LDL bad cholestrol also high. Bad cholestrol LDL usually causing blood clotting, dangerous. Alot say exercise and sweating alot good to reduce LDL.

Ok, good to see this is working for you.

Oh ya since u mentioned it, it doesnt work on certain on my friends. They having hard time to reduce their cholestrol that time.

Again... LDL is NOT bad cholesterol, it's not even a cholesterol. It's a cholesterol transport, which is necessary for your body. "Bad" LDL is the ones that has oxidized, by free radicals in your body.

Ehh u sure ka? Cos that time doctor told me LDL is bad cholestrol wor. Even i google also say bad cholestrol.

what;s your HDL and LDL readings?

Besides the total reading (HDL + LDL), the next most important factor is the ratio.

https://www.cdc.gov/cholesterol/ldl_hdl.htm

Previously memang heavy on meat (lembu, kambing, rusa, semua belasah asalkan daging)

Same thing happened to me. Increase fruits, nuts, seeds, grains... banyak beza in health and energy level.

Red meat now only once a month.

Next time, ask your doctor "what is LDL? Why does my body produce it if it's bad?"

Doctors are good at treating illnesses because that's what they're trained to do, but they don't know much about being healthy.

Let me give you another side of a story. A close member of my family who was diagnosed with hypertension and refused to take doctor's advice on medication. Instead, prefer to rely on natural remedies and change of diet/lifestyle. But it was too late and was diagnosed with severe SAH and almost lost his life. Can you image the wonders that little pill can do? I think you should seek a secondary professional medical opinion as everyone's body and situation is different.

Most Dr are in the cycle of illness. Not cycle of health

Any pills surely have side effects long term. Pop more pills and all side effects fk your body system

Talk to dr usually they engage in shallow conversations such as take medication or do surgery. No vision in treating it well and fix the problem

Western knowledge can be shit at times.

Got ask lastime. He said LDL is bad cholestrol. He advice less eat high cholestrol foods esoecially red meat, processed meat foods like sausage, cos LDL usually formed inside vein, become blood clotting that can caused heart attack and stroke. That according to him. Plz share if u got more accurate info abt this.

Damn, u belasah most red meat haha. Same with me now, red meat i very control, take it moderately only. Sometimes no red meat in a month.

After u noticed banyak beza after taking healthy diet foods, feel satisfied also can achieved it.

Take the medication with full knowledge that is not the be all and end all.

Medication will bring down your levels faster, but for long term, you still need a change of diet and lifestyle. TLDR, you need both.

Yes, diet and lifestyle change can "be enough" but it will be difficult to change that quickly. We are creatures of habit.

well...
you take the statement as it is la.

the doctor meant medication to help make the level lower sooner la.
but like everything else, for sure lifestyle change and diet will help la.

not like you eat medicine then continue with your current path.
so if you want see immediate result, medicine + lifestyle/diet change for long term.

if you just want lifestyle/diet change, dunno how drastic you will take it and how long its gonna take you. in that case, will you be okay until you get it done?

Those were the days where every decision is based on "tepuk dada, tanya selera"

immediate damage control = take the medicine

long term damage control = change your lifestyle, this takes time.

Check out the YouTube video in post #44, it's a bit long but it will give you a VERY good idea of what cholesterol is, and what is LDL, and what actually causes heart attack. More and more med journals and research are showing that the link of cholesterol and heart disease is weak, if there are even relationships. As I had said, blaming cholesterol for heart disease is like blaming ambulance for causing accidents.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30198808/
https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/research-...ase-20-06-2016/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/...20314120702.htm

You *might* have a heart attack if you have high LDL, but you WILL have heart disease if you eat lots of inflammatory foods, because that is how atherosclerosis happens.

Anyway, just so you know, the reason why my cholesterol shot to 9 is because I was naive and arrogant.

Watched people like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Eric Berg, Jason Fung who are HUGE proponents of the keto/carnivore lifestyle and defended the diet stubbornly for YEARS.

You will see results in the short term but in the long term, there is systemic inflammation happening in the background that will totally destroy your health.

If you google the term "keto mortality" or "carnivore diet mortality", you will see MULTIPLE studies from credible sources like Harvard, Pubmed NIH, WebMd associating it with EARLY DEATH!

My health actually deteriorated until I came across doctors like Michael Greger, Neil Barnard, Colin Campbell, Michael Klaper, Caldwell Esselstyn, John McDougall who all wholeheartedly, with strong evidence, recommended the Whole Food Plant Based No Oil diet.

If your only health problem so far is high cholesterol, it's most likely easy peasy. You will most likely reverse it.

I kid you not but the whole food plant based no oil diet have been shown to actually reverse heart disease and even cancer!

Plenty of survivor stories. Recently, just came across Mike Fremont who beat colon cancer in his 60's. The man is 100 years old and still running marathons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPmA7Fral5s

Watch these 3 documentaries to gain a better understanding of the diet.

1. https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-film/ (free from the website)
2. What The Health (on Netflix)
3. How Not To Die by Michael Greger https://youtu.be/lXXXygDRyBU




For breakfast, it's always oats and a few slices of 7 grains bread with sesame seed paste, marmite, and peanut butter. Made with no oil.

For lunch, it's always whole grains, beans, and vegetables. Quarter, quarter, half. Cooked with no oil.



For dinner, it's always salad and also quarter, quarter, half. Blended smoothie of some hard vegetables (like beetroot), fruits, seeds, and nuts as dressing. Prepared with no oil.



Of course if dining out, can't avoid oil. Considered my cheat meal.

And it's either in vegan or vegetarian restaurants but definitely no animal protein. Indian vegetarian restaurants usually have dairy like yogurt and Chinese ones may have eggs, even the noodles, so gotta ask to be sure.

Yeap. 120/80.

I'm doing strength workouts too. Been gradually increasing plant protein intake.

This post has been edited by ccxh: Sep 30 2022, 07:23 PM

Seek other doctor for second opinion lol,
This forum only can be reference but none of them are actual doctor.

Real md vs someone probably medical phd from whatsapp or fb? You choose.

Haha understand. Cant control the lust for food
Especially lamb chop and steak burger for me lastime

Thanks for sharing good info

run psyllium, niacin, bile/udca, konjac to carb replacement, no sugars with some light physcal actvty maybe restnce training

cycle after cycle, 2 weeks rest in between



this is ts, after 20 mths successful completion, reading his health markers



This post has been edited by ieatchickens: Oct 1 2022, 09:17 PM

I am 49yo and my total cholesterol is 5.5.
At that level and my age, my doctor already bising. Keeps threatening to prescribe me medicine, and I keep lying that I will be exercising lol

My goodness! Need to check/screen mine sometime soon.

what's wrong with that?

not over 6.0 yet.

TS what made u took the test initially?

Probable to scare me to exercise and diet.

But my bad cholesterol is high though.

Share lah more results like ldl, hdl, tri, uric, fbg, weight, height, etc

Although most here aren't doctors we are very informed about health markers

I don't have the printed report. The doctor just read the results from the screen (PPUM doctor). He said my LDL was rather high. The rest looked okay.

Weight 76kg height 172cm.

I took Hypocol red yeast 2 capsules daily for few years already, is this still within range? 5 years back blood test got 7.5 something then start taking, last year also dropped to 5.x something but I'm continue taking...

What do you mean by within the range?

I take VitaHealth Red Yeast Rice 500mg capsules. I started with one capsule a day, but eventually reduced it to 4 capsules a week. As noted, too much red yeast rice could be bad for your liver.

Wow, only 4 capsules per week!
Then I'll try reduce 1 capsule per day, next year blood test see result first before reducing further...

A bad habit for many Malaysians is buying cheap food for meals instead of cooking at home. Eating out is really unhealthy and I've got relatives and family friends who are in poor or subpar health for their ages because of it. Processed foods like the some fish cakes are also iffy, always have that oily layer which need to be washed off.

I think the medical guidelines have changed more recently for cholesterol lowering medication and instead of narrowly looking at cholesterol or ldl levels, doctors are supposed to assess for overall risk of heart disease before those prescribing drugs. So the sciene has already pushed changes in prescribing guidelines although I don't know if Malaysian doctors are up to date.

How come you don't get any report? Who pays for the test should get the report.

We get full medical report that shows the test results and normal ranges for each marker. The results that aren't within the normal range would be bolded.

Is your dokter a gp or specialist? Lots of sampah grad dokters nowdays.

Many doctors (from senior doctors to young doctors). The doctors just saw that the cholesterol reading had a red flag on the screen of course they would bising.

My next checkup will be in November. Hoping to get a better reading since I started to exercise recently.

LDL high is only one reading. Check post #44 for Dr Ekberg's explanation on how cholesterol affects your body.

Yes, I know it's 40 minutes long, but if you're spending hundreds of ringgit, maybe thousands, on bloodwork and consultation, and not even get a straight answer, why not spend 40 minutes to get knowledge on what you're spending money on?

Has the guidelines changed to reflect how cholesterol is not the cause of heart diseases?

Well, to be honest, company provide claim for the health screening test so I go ahead and test it.

We need the LOL button
But in all seriousness it would be good to start with light exercises to build into habit. Even something as simple as walking your pet (if you have one) for 45min to an hour would be great to kick start. I'm the kind who gets lazy as well but force myself to hit the gym at least 3x a week. Anything more is bonus.

I just started going to gym again since 2 weeks ago. Surprisingly gym is not crowded yet.

makan saka inchi in 2 months sure the cholesterol reading drop

dont beat yourself 2/3 cholestrol are produced by the body. ur cholestrol level probably due to genetic. take the medicine and after one month do again blood test. i went from 8.1 to 4.9 in just one month using medicine

Mine was worse than u, 8.5.

Seafood everyweek 3 times minimum.

Dr ask me take medicine but i didnt want, but in the end decided to listen to doctor. Take medicine 2 months (60 days, maybe slip 3 days so 57 days total). 2 months later go back test again kolesterol back to normal level (around 4.5). I so happy continue my seafood binge. Just remember to take medicine everyday so whatever good stuff masuk will not bekam kolesterol.

A little sidetracked: Now seems less crowded but you'll see more people soon because #newyear resolution and pre-festive effort gym sells better for vanity reasons than health imo.

End of the day, everyone knows the recipe to good health: balanced diet, workout and sufficient sleep. But this simple mantra is so hard to follow (consistently).

Not sure if I can meet all 3 criteria, but I will sure try.
Thanks for the reminder.

Parking

Some info regarding the omega 3 and omega 6:

https://www.bulletproof.com/supplements/ami...at-supplements/

https://chriskresser.com/how-too-much-omega...making-us-sick/

I don't know the extent of it, what I'm saying is that there is already a shift in the thinking about cho and heart disease.