At our age do you think we CAN lower cholesterol with diet and exercise?

Uptosnuff

Uptosnuff

Member
Location
Great Plains, USA
Earlier this month I had an annual check-up with my doctor and they took a blood draw. A couple of days later my doc called me with the results. I knew it wasn't good when the doc calls. She told me my total cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, triglycerides were all too high. She then said that rather than just prescribe prescription medications, she wanted to see if I could lower it with diet and exercise.

I have been working from home since March and have gained 12 pounds. Since I heard the results, I have started to scale back my portion sizes and upped my exercise. I am s-l-o-w-l-y losing the weight. But I am wondering if that will be enough? She wants me to come back in a couple of months and take another blood draw. Have any of you done this?
 

Uptosnuff said:
She then said that rather than just prescribe prescription medications, she wanted to see if I could lower it with diet and exercise.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you have a good doctor....one who recommends lifestyle changes instead of just loading you up with drugs. Weight gain is the root cause of many illnesses, and if you can reduce/control it without resorting to getting hooked on drugs, you will be far better off, in the long run.
 

A girl friend of mine's doc told her years ago her cholesterol was too high and wanted to prescribe meds - statins. She said no and went for a full year eating like a bird...lost so much weight and she wasn't big to begin with. I presume she always got good exercise as they had land and she was very active with gardening, etc.

After the year, she had her cholesterol checked and it had actually gone UP. She walked out of the office and never came back. Told me they didn't know what they were doing. She's 92 now.

Another friend has high cholesterol and won't take meds, says her aunt is 96 with high cholesterol and sharp as a tack.

People are different and since about 50% of cardiovascular events happen in people with normal cholesterol
levels, nothing is a given:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/ask-the-doctor-heart-attack-despite-low-cholesterol
https://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/news/20000405/normal-cholesterol-heart-disease
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190509142705.htm

We are all different and the Mediterranean Diet does seem to lower heart attack risk:

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2018/how-mediterranean-diet-lowers-risk-cardiovascular-disease
 
Uptosnuff said:
At our age do you think we CAN lower cholesterol with diet and exercise?
Click to expand...
Absolutely! Diet is the main component- avoiding/reducing sugary foods, total carbs,trans fats, saturated fats and calories. Portion control. I lost 50+ lb.s in 2018-2019, tracking my food intake with an app called MyFitnesspal. Diet is 80~90% of the battle for weight loss or controlling cholesterol , but exercise is important, and does in fact help lower cholesterol in and of itself.
 
Uptosnuff said:
Earlier this month I had an annual check-up with my doctor and they took a blood draw. A couple of days later my doc called me with the results. I knew it wasn't good when the doc calls. She told me my total cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, triglycerides were all too high. She then said that rather than just prescribe prescription medications, she wanted to see if I could lower it with diet and exercise.

I have been working from home since March and have gained 12 pounds. Since I heard the results, I have started to scale back my portion sizes and upped my exercise. I am s-l-o-w-l-y losing the weight. But I am wondering if that will be enough? She wants me to come back in a couple of months and take another blood draw. Have any of you done this?
Click to expand...
I think the doctor is taking the conservative approach which may be all that you need. Who wa at to jump to drugs as a first line if they don’t need it? You may have dodged a bullet! 😉
 
Uptosnuff said:
Since I heard the results, I have started to scale back my portion sizes and upped my exercise. I am s-l-o-w-l-y losing the weight. But I am wondering if that will be enough?
Click to expand...
Ten years ago I lost enough weight (and exercised a lot) and my cholesterol and insulin-resistance went down enough that I didn't need to take statins and metformin anymore. But since then I have gained weight and am not getting as much exercise, my cholesterol is back up but my doctor has not put me on statins so I don't know what to think. I've watched a lot of YouTube videos about it and it seems like the advice is all over the place. Now I'm just trying to reduce sugar to see if there will be any changes next time I have a checkup.
 
OP,
One size doesn't fit all. Two more anecdotes:
1) Brother, age 66, had slightly-elevated total cholesterol (TC) and LDL (the bad stuff) and had no symptoms but consulted a cardiologist because imaging showed that his carotid arteries went from slightly-clogged to moderately-clogged in just two years.

Cardiologist advised that exercise and diet changes at his age would not help and put him on a regimen of statins and low-dose aspirin.
__________

2) Fitness has always held my interest, but at only age 42, and a solid 210#, my TC was 284 and LDL 130. Put myself on the Pritikin diet and within four months, TC dropped to the 180s and LDL below 100. No change in bodyweight.

Unfortunately, the numbers never improved and despite continuing with Pritikin, they gradually rose until locking in at 210-225 TC and just above 100 LDL. So I stopped worrying about it.

Fast fwd. Around age 65 TC and LDL dropped inexplicably and since then have stayed 140-160 TC and 70-80 LDL. Now at age 76, I suspect that with some people, the liver, which is the main cholesterol-forming organ, becomes less efficient with age. This same pattern occurred with my mom.
 
Last edited:
I have always been on the thin side and have never had to worry much about health issues. Until I hit my mid-50's. Even working from home I am still sitting in front of a computer all day which is not helping things. My mother did have high cholesterol but she never did exercise and led a very sedentary existence. I will definitely continue with the healthy eating, portion sizes and exercising because I want to stay away from medications and statins as much as I can. I do know that it is much harder to lose weight in my 60's than it was before.

It is up to me ultimately if I go back to get that second blood draw. I don't know which is worse: the statins and their side effects or the cholesterol. Either way, this is certainly a wake up call.
 
i struggle with eating properly because frankly we were never made to at home as kids and i don't like the way healthy food tastes. some of it has to do with false teeth because some stuff is hard to eat that's fresh. so i don't know what to do to deal with that. my cholesterol has been on the high side for years regardless of weight so i don't know.
 
I totally get it about the false teeth. It's too bad you don't like the taste of healthy foods. I assume you probably mean fruits and veggies. The only thing I can think of is to lightly roast them or steam them to make them more chewable.

When I was growing up, my dad had a huge garden and my family was used to eating all the fresh veggies like tomatoes, green beans, kohlrabi, sweet corn, etc. We also had apricot, pear and apple trees and raspberry bushes. I didn't realize until I was an adult how lucky we were to have all that. I had an extremely healthy childhood which stood me in good stead throughout my adult life.
 
My doctor wanted me to watch my diet and take red rice yeast ( a OTC supplement) since i was on other medications that would have been bad with statins ..... mine went down in two months a significant amount that the nurse said he made them test it twice since results were great.
i know to many on statins and see no difference just maintain same levels.
 
I have lowered mine some with diet but old habits die hard with me. I do like to eat some fatty things! My cholesterol was not ridiculously high but my doctor wanted to put me on statins. I've had bad effects with them namely severe leg pains. I told him about that as he is a rather new doctor to me.

Finally, I asked him if there were any meds that were not statins and could I try one. So he put me on Zetia every day and Crestor once a week as it is a statin. I was supposed to get my cholesterol checked since then but have not because of the pandemic and reports of my clinic having a very high rate of covid among care providers. I will talk to my doctor on the phone again in January 2021 about getting my test at a later date, or after I get the vaccine, to see how it has gone.
 
Jeni said:
My doctor wanted me to watch my diet and take red rice yeast ( a OTC supplement) since i was on other medications that would have been bad with statins ..... mine went down in two months a significant amount that the nurse said he made them test it twice since results were great.
i know to many on statins and see no difference just maintain same levels.
Click to expand...
Interesting. So you think the red rice yeast lowered your cholesterol? I am very interested in supplements that are not statins that could lower my cholesterol. Something to talk over with my doc.
 
@ Ruthanne I know what you mean about old habits! I also like foods that are bad for me. If I try to cut them out totally, though, I'm setting myself up for failure. Maybe the key is very limited amounts.

I like the idea of checking on medications that are not statins. If the diet and exercise don't work, I'm going to ask her about them.
 
There are four genetic types that impact cholesterol. I could eat a whole hog and still run normal. Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum that could eat only lettuce and still run high. Most people are in the two groups between those extremes and lifestyle changes definitely work to normalize lipid levels. Exercise, choosing good fats will normalize cholesterol for the majority of people. If triglycerides are high, then the extra step of decreasing intake of simple sugars is needed.
 
I was disinterested in taking a statin but my doctor prescribed Simvastatin so I began taking it, and it lowered cholesterol to a level the doctor was happy with. One pill a day it turns out, is no big deal, but the diet and exercise thing is still a good thing regardless.
 
Uptosnuff said:
Interesting. So you think the red rice yeast lowered your cholesterol? I am very interested in supplements that are not statins that could lower my cholesterol. Something to talk over with my doc.
Click to expand...
I do and so does my doctor as he told me about it.
I did try to eat healthier but the changes made would not have changed the numbers like they did. lucky for me that many of the doctors i have used prefer to try other options before writing a prescription first.
 
Thank you all for the info you have shared. I am certainly not an expert in cholesterol and any info I can get on it is great. It will help me sort out my choices and make a good decision. ☀️
 

Back
Top