There is no history of Heart disease in his family but he is seeing the Cardiologist for an irregular heart beat.
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Q: my husband has great blood presure but a LDL of 110, HDL of 44 and Triglicerides of 49. His cardiologist wants to put him on Zocor 90mg.for the bad LDL. Is it really high enough to warrant a Statin?
Answers (2)
10/ 4/10 5:23pm
Hi Savannah,
I encourage your husband to request a comprehensive lipid profile prior to agreeing to take the medication. This will give a better look at LDL cholesterol particle sizes to determine if medication is really needed or not.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
How to Lower Cholesterol in 8 Simple Steps
10/ 7/10 3:16pm
Your husband's LDL value was calculated using an old formula. Had his LDL been measured (like his HDL, Total cholesterol, and triglycerides), it would have come out to 86.
25 years ago, the rule of thumb for healthy cholesterol levels was 200+age. That didn't change until statins became widely used in the 1990s. Then the recommended value for LDL came down to 130 for people at high risk for heart disease. Several years later, when more powerful statins became available, the recommneded LDL for high-risk patients dropped to 100. In this decade, as even more powerful statins became available, that number dropped to 70. Keep in mind, that is only for very high-risk male patients. Statins actually increase mortality in women, period.
What is a high-risk heart patient? I consider myself one. I'm a 53 year old and every male in my family has experienced either mutiple heart attacks or strokes before the age of 50. I'm the exception. I started making changes 20 years ago when I realized my way of living wasn't condusive to heart health. As a pharmacist I knew better. I tried to eat better and started exercising.
Seven years ago, my doctor convinced me to start taking niacin to improve my numbers. When my older brother had his third heart attack, I started to perform a lot of research into how I could improve my chances of not experiencing a stroke or heart attack. Here's a summary of what I've learned.
1. Cholesterol does not cause heart disease. Cholesterol is used by the body to repair damage to the arteries caused by something else. In fact, death from cardiovascular disease is lowest when total cholesterol is between 200 and 220. As cholesterol levels drop, the risk of death from a heart attack increases.
2. Statins do a great job of lowering LDL cholesterol. They also have anti-inflammatory effects which improve artery function. Statins also lower levels of testosterone and CoQ-10 in the body, both of which are bad things for a man. Men with low testosterone have a higher risk of heart disease than men with normal testosterone. The incidence of side effects is also much higher than is reported by doctors. Statin-induced side effects are usually written off as "it's just you getting older".
3. Higher doses of statins are no better than lower doses of statins. 10 mg of Zocor works just as well as 40 or 80 mg of Zocor in reducing heart attacks.
4. By taking niacin and eating right, my HDL has risen from 32 to 74. My LDL is around 85, and my triglycerides are low. When I explained to my doctor how I did it, to my surprise she didn't even blink. She just said, keep it up.
Under no circumstance would I ever consider taking a statin again. I did for awhile, and experienced liver damage. I'm sticking with plain old niacin.
1/23/11 6:03am
i had a heart attack and an open heart surgery 12 years ago. I have been taking zokor for 10 years and lipitor for two.
I started getting body aces and pains to a point that i can no longer handle.
my ldl is 85 and my hdl level is 41.
my question is . if i stop statins and use niacin and drop ldl levels to 70 can i stop statins for good.
1/23/11 12:25pm
Although statins are great at dropping LDL. they also have some anti-inflammatory effects. Niacin also has anti-inflammatory properties too. Niacin isn't quite as powerful as statins in reducing LDL. However, there's a forms of vitamin E that can also drop LDL by a different mechanism from statins. Normal vitamin E is called alpha-tocopherol. Tocotrienols are also vitamin E but not many people have heard of them. The best forms to lower LDL are delta- and gamma-tocotrienols.
Regular vitamin E is normal amounts will block the LDL lowering effect of tocotrienols. It's best to limit the consumption of normal vitamin E when taking tocotrienols. Vitamin E derived from palm oil has significant amounts of delta- and gamma-tocotrienols. It has has alpha-tocopherol. Tocotrienols derived from the annatto plant contain only delta- and gamma-tocotrienols.
I take one palm oil tocotrienol capsule in the morning and two capsules of annatto tocotrienols in the evening. I use Twinlab's MaiLife Rice tocotrienols for my morning dose and delta fraction tocotrienols in the evening.
Your doctor will probably be reluctant to switch you to niacin because it has one very noticable side effect that a lot of people don't want to put up with. Niacin causes skin flushing when taken in doses needed to help cholesterol. The flushing is actually beneficial but it's also very noticable, especially if you're fair-skinned like me. There are forms of niacin that don't cause flushing but they also do nothing to help cholesterol. Some extended-release forms of niacin make you flush less but they have a higher incidence of causing elevated liver enzymes which is a sign of liver toxicty. For this reason, I've always taken regular (i.e. immediate-release) niacin. Taking an aspirin 45 minutes before taking the niacin will lessen, but not eliminate, the flushing. I take my niacin three times a day. The extended-release form is taken at bedtime. You should avoid non-prescription forms of extended-release niacin because they've demonstrated a lower safety tolerance than prescription forms. Your doctor should also periodically test your liver function to ensure you're not having problems with the niacin.
Your doctor will know nothing about tocotrienols. However, I've been taking them for nine months and my LDL has gone down.
Lowering LDL is the typical method for reducing heart disease. However, it's a lousy way to reduce heart disease. Rasing HDL is a much more effective method of reducing the risk of a heart attack. Niacin raises HDL significantly, lowers LDL modestly, and significantly lowers triglycerides. It's also the only medication that lowers Lp(a), a more dangerous form of LDL. It also improves HDL and LDL particle size unlike statins. There's nothing else like it, except for a high-fat diet. But that's a whole other story.
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By Savannah— Last Modified: 02/15/11, First Published: 10/02/10
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thanks so much for the imformation. We have decided to try lowering his LDL naturally. We do eat healthy but our diet needs to be tweaked a bit. Also, I'm going to check into him taking the niacin. You aren't the first to suggest it. He visited his Cardi. today for a follow up. He told him he'd like to get his LDL down to 70. When my husband asked if he could do that with diet he told him,"if you ate nothing but grass and water from now on you couldn't get it that low." My opinion, if that is true, then maybe the good Lord didn't intend it to be that low! lol
Now, since my husband is having the irregular heartbeat. He wants to know why because he said all those missfires can damage the heart. He wants to do a Heart Cath. or Angiogram. Red flags went off all over me when I heard that. My husband is 56 and it's something he has always had and no other cardiologist seemed to be concerned. We are now going to find another Dr. for a second opinion.
I'm realizing that we all HAVE to do our homework and not follow Doctors blindy. Thanks again for telling us your story. It helps greatly. God Bless you! :)