The FastDay Forum

what a fabulous program.

so many pertinent points to consider if you are on statins. dont talk to doctor or he may be getting a cut of the profits. do your own research or find a doctor that is ethical.

good discussion too on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ABCCatalyst

This is all such good info. I have been trying to figure out what to do. The Catalyst story was very interesting. Glad I could stream it. Probably won't air here in the US. Don't get me started on US healthcare.

I asked my Dr to go to a different medication and she agreed to let me go off all cholesterol meds to see how my diet efforts would work out. Had my 3 month follow up and results were not good. High total, triglycerides and LDL, marginal HDL. I think I will give it another 3 months before I decide what to do for sure while continuing to work at losing.

Although I don't know if my heart is ok (Dad had a heart attack at 75 then lived until 85 with a stent and pacemaker). I do worry that I am not active enough and drink too much. I need to work on both of those. I guess I worry about strokes more than heart. I had a very stressful job so I wonder how much damage I've done that may not be reversible.

Someone had a link to an article by this blogger. He's a Canadian doctor trained at Stanford and Johns Hopkins in the US. There is extensive info on cholesterol that I intend to read before deciding what to do. It is an 11 part series.
http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the- ... rol-part-i

Thanks again for all the good info.

I get called paranoid on things frequently and labelled worry wort, I now trust my inner paranoia.
I've always wondered why when i read side effects on leaflets, one to mind now is hormone cream which is topical. When i discuss this with a gp they just blow it right off.

I know I'm going to have a struggle with my gp or any I encounter regards to my cholesterol, because I am .4 out of the so called safe bracket for cholesterol and I DO NOT want to take lipitor or any statin at all.

What can i go at them with, any thing to say to them, to make them respect my wishes. I feel brow beaten with gp and the like. They went to uni, I didn't. But I'm not stupid either.

I get called paranoid on things frequently and labelled worry wort, I now trust my inner paranoia.
I've always wondered why when i read side effects on leaflets, one to mind now is hormone cream which is topical. When i discuss this with a gp they just blow it right off.

I know I'm going to have a struggle with my gp or any I encounter regards to my cholesterol, because I am .4 out of the so called safe bracket for cholesterol and I DO NOT want to take lipitor or any statin at all.

What can i go at them with, any thing to say to them, to make them respect my wishes. I feel brow beaten with gp and the like. They went to uni, I didn't. But I'm not stupid either.

They cant force you to take them. Uni will not necessarily include a detailed course in the efficacy of Statins so you can consider yourself equally informed about it.

Link to the second Catalyst programme now on Malcolm Kendrick's site...

Well here I am, sitting waiting for my blood to be taken. This is after seeing a new doctor who, when I mentioned fasting, said "Well we wouldn't recommend that!". This was after she had grilled me over my choice of thyroid meds...as if I wa a fruity freak...then took my BP 159/101!!! It was 137/74 a few days ago. Now I am having tests and have to go back for results..this will be stressful! My cholesterol was 6.9 last time - thankfully that Dr wasn't concerned. This new one has Dr God syndrome. I watched the program with interest and i realised these Drs don't have a clue. They spend all day selling antibiotics to people, seeing kids with colds, have medical degrees 20 yrs+ old and go home and drink wine rather than update their medical knowledge. I find that trying to find a good doctor horrendous. I actually saw my old Dr when I was in Perth on holiday, cos he is so good. I am after a wellness doctor, not a sickness doctor.

Well here I am, sitting waiting for my blood to be taken. This is after seeing a new doctor who, when I mentioned fasting, said "Well we wouldn't recommend that!". This was after she had grilled me over my choice of thyroid meds...as if I wa a fruity freak...then took my BP 159/101!!! It was 137/74 a few days ago. Now I am having tests and have to go back for results..this will be stressful! My cholesterol was 6.9 last time - thankfully that Dr wasn't concerned. This new one has Dr God syndrome. I watched the program with interest and i realised these Drs don't have a clue. They spend all day selling antibiotics to people, seeing kids with colds, have medical degrees 20 yrs+ old and go home and drink wine rather than update their medical knowledge. I find that trying to find a good doctor horrendous. I actually saw my old Dr when I was in Perth on holiday, cos he is so good. I am after a wellness doctor, not a sickness doctor.

Wish there was somewhere you can see a rating system on doctors. i guess its only word of mouth.. Your pursuit of a "wellness doctor" is commended

Do you find GPs in Medical centres or their approach, different to the GPs from small practices?

GMH: After three successive BP readings in the 150+/90+ region at doctor's and surgeon's surgeries I caved in and bought a home machine (Omron MT10 IT) which has since reliably confirmed that my average BP is somewhere in the region of 120/70.

I can't understand why sitting in the presence of a health professional should make such a difference but it certainly does for me...

GMH: After three successive BP readings in the 150+/90+ region at doctor's and surgeon's surgeries I caved in and bought a home machine (Omron MT10 IT) which has since reliably confirmed that my average BP is somewhere in the region of 120/70.

I can't understand why sitting in the presence of a health professional should make such a difference but it certainly does for me...

I bought my own blood pressure monitor too Pete...I go to jelly in the presence of health professionals....and always go armed with a few weeks readings .Talking of which, my pressure is way down now
I had horrible side effects with Statins and was actually taken off them by a consultant...she said never to touch them again! I shall be interested to see what my blood profile is when I go back to the doctor next March.He's given up trying to get me to take drugs for cholesterol, particularly as Statins didn't do me much good. It does pay to be armed with some background knowledge of your own when going to the doctor and if in doubt take time out and do some research yourself first.

My friends have a BP monitor so take mine regularly at their place, but I have usually been rushing about, walking dogs, then rush to theirs, then we start yapping, so I try and do it b4 we start talking, drinking & eating! Story is my BP appears up, then not up, then the last Dr made me have a 24 BP monitor. Quite ridiculous I think. If they had done it on a weekend..impossible as they think they need to fit and take off (a child could do it) it may have been OK, but my working day goes like this: drive to dog 1, run inside, get dog, leap into van, race to dog 2, run inside put lead on dog, rush to van, drive thru city traffic etc etc, then get dogs out of van walk in dog park, rush out into traffic and repeat, repeat. The bloody BP monitor would go off as I was being draggef into a park by 6 dogs, I looked down once and it was 180/100 or something. NOT conducive to a relaxed BP reading. So Dr tells me the average is 140/80 and that's OK, then out of the blue, 3 months later, she suggests I visit and maybe wr need to do something about BP. Being cynical i thought maybe her drug company rep had visited as for good docs, yes Juliana word of mouth has been best. Then I usually ask the compounding chemist where thyroid meds are made if they have Dr in my area. It is, in my opinion, the open minded Drs who prescribe thyroid extract (T3/T4 in same proportion as human thyroid, as opposed to Thyroxine which is T4 only). So I go back to this new Dr in a week, let's see what she says. The biggest issue is that the good Drs are not taking new patients. I think this is crazy since I go to Dr 2x a year...for blood tests, for results There is a wellness centre about 30 mins from me, but only locums taking patients...I may go there anyway.

I'm another who has problems with my blood pressure at the doctors. I've monitored at home on and off through the years and once I get over my phobia of the home machine my readings are fine. Not sure why I have this problem but I am a nervous nelly at the best of times. My doctor doesn't take it very often now and if she does she just frowns at the machine and doesn't tell me the reading.

It is a really interesting programme. It got me thinking and I would not agree with everything it is in there. Especially, fist part is very controversial.

Firstly, about butter and margarine. As it is known, scientists have been changing their mind on this topic which option is better. It is because the answer is not simple. Currently dietitians realise that it cannot be said "eat butter" or "eat margarine" just like this. Why? Because it depends on your cholesterol level. If you are healthy and you are not at the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, the best option is to choose butter. Because margarine is full of trans-fatty acids and they are certainly very unhealthy. However, if your blood cholesterol level is already high, you should avoid butter and choose margarine in order to prevent further increase in LDL-cholesterol level.

The question appears if high cholesterol is really unhealthy? I agree with the statement that almost every cell has a lot of cholesterol, it is very important for hormone production as well as it plays a major role in transport through cell membrane. However, in here we are talking about HDL-cholesterol, not about LDL-cholesterol. We cannot say cholesterol is good or bad. We need to be specific. HDL-cholesterol is very important, but high LDL-cholesterol comes with some risks. As it was shown in the clip LDL-cholesterol is much bigger molecules than HDL. The simplest observation: if the blood vessel is narrow (for any reason, so I am not discussing here if cholesterol is really a trigger for artherosclersis), which molecule small or large will have a problem with smooth flow? Well, I think large molecule would cause problems and a large molecule is LDL-cholesterol.

What is more, there is further division of LDL particles. We have LDL1, LDL2, and LDL3. The LDL3 particles are the most atherogenic. These particles have low affinity for the LDL receptor which increases their residence time in the circulation for interaction with the arterial walls. They are particular at risk for oxidative damage. The oxidatively damages particles are easily taken up by macrophage scavenger receptors to begin the process of artherosclerosis. Moreover, LDL3 particle carry enzyme lipoprotein-associated phospholipase that have important role in artherosclerosis.

The next aspect I would mention is effect of cholesterol on gene regulation. Cholesterol has high affinity for SREBP. This is a binding protein in cell that stimulates production of lipid synthetic genes. Therefore, the largest amount of cholesterol we eat, the larger amount of genes responsible for fat accumulation. On the other hand, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) have totally opposite effect. PUFAs increase production of genes responsible for usage of fatty acids, as well as decrease accumulation of fat. What is more, PUFAs improve insulin sensitivity in muscles and liver. Therefore, there is a clear evidence that eating PUFAs is beneficial for health. Maybe I am wrong, but I have never heard of study showing any benefit from eating cholesterol.

The key in here is that there are biological mechanisms supporting theory that eating PUFAs is good for us, while high level of LDL-cholesterol has negative effect on blood vessel functioning and fatty acids metabolism. It is not enough to have some observations while doing cardiovascular operations. This kind of evidence is at the lowest position in the hierarchy of evidences. Randomised controlled trials provide the most reliable evidences. This evidence must be supported by many studies, as well as it needs to be supported by biological mechanism. Then, we can say it is a good evidence.

Second part of this programme isn't so controversial for me. I agree that overall we overuse many drugs. But I guess it's not something new. The best example is painkillers. General population use painkillers in huge amounts. Average person uses them very often. Drugs companies have again great profit. However, they are very useful and effective. Therefore, we cannot start saying that painkillers are bad just because drugs companies make huge profit. I agree that marketing over-exaggerate many things but saying "cholesterol is not bad" is just wrong.

[carorees]

Someone had a link to an article by this blogger. He's a Canadian doctor trained at Stanford and Johns Hopkins in the US. There is extensive info on cholesterol that I intend to read before deciding what to do. It is an 11 part series.
http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the- ... rol-part-i

This series explaining exactly the role of cholesterol by the great Peter Attia is well worth reading and shows how extremely complicated the whole picture is! I think no-one has been able to see the whole picture...it is as if we were trying to understand a wall mural by peering through a keyhole at it.

My take on the whole fat and cholesterol thing is, firstly, that you should not look at fat intake or carbohydrate intake in isolation, the effect of eating large amounts of saturated fat or polyunsaturated fat or cholesterol is different in the context of a high carbohydrate intake than in the context of a low carbohydrate diet. Secondly, the link between circulating cholesterol levels and cardiovascular risk is not clear...and again it may depend on your fuel utilization...if you are a fat burner, you need fats being circulated around the body for you to burn as fuel, but if you are a sugar burner, large amounts of circulating fats are likely to be bad...so again, it depends on the context.

Here's a reply to the program, from ABC Radio National

"ABC 1’s Catalyst program caused considerable interest after it questioned the importance of cholesterol as a health risk and attacked the use of statins. Dr Norman Swan says the show went too far, and for many people, disregarding medical advice on lowering cholesterol could kill them."

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... rt/5070114

Has anyone had a chance to see their doctor to discuss their current use of anti-cholesterol medications. Anyone actually stopped using on the strength of the programs.