High Cholesterol Support Group

Hi Lizzy,

No I hav never had lovastatin. I am on lipitor. I have read and heard alot about lipitor and yes I am concerned. I am not going to freak out as everyone's discussion that I have read so far is relating only to drugs exclusively. It is my goal for myself as I did share with you "eat to live", a paperback by a Dr Fuhrman and recomended by Dr Emmett Oz who is also recommended by Oprah Winfrey. I have have been looking alot into non-drug therapies intensively. It appears that it is not as complicated as we make out to be. It is ALL diet related. I am personally for the moment at least very moved by the juicing world. THAT my friend is what I believe will educate me to TOTAL health. It will lower my blood presure, lower my chloresterol, lower my blood and check it in where it is supposed to be, etc. I am now going to check out more on www.bartonpublishing.com website. I recently got the report regarding lowering ones blood presure NATURALLY! I am now going to get the report on lowering chloresterol NATUALLY also. Check the website out. If you want more info on chloresterol, just write and I will do my best to sare what I have learned. Have a great day Lizzy.

Lovastatin (Mevacor) is one of the less potent cholesterol lowering agents. You would usually need a higher dosage of it to get the same results as say lipitor, zocor, crestor. Using higher doses however, increases the chance of side effects (muscle pain, liver function). Also, lovastatin needs to be taken WITH FOOD to help absorption so preferably with evening meal. :)

I take lovastatin 40mg. mine
has came down good with it.
from 240 to 175

I am taking 20mg Lovastatin. so far mine has come down.
Lizzy was speaking about juicing. I think one would have to have a lot of veggies and fruits to make a proper serving of juice. My frig cannot keep fresh veggies very long.

I was just prescribed Lovastatin, I read on the Internet that they call it the "dumb drug" because it effects your brain, anyone have any input on that?

well duh, lenox, i dunno...i don't think so, but i dunno...

seriously, i take lovastatin and have no serious brain malfunctions or impediments. it also has not dropped my cholesterol one iota. doctors are seriously concerned with high measures of cholesterol. however, as one of my heart patient friends said, "it aint how high it is, but how much sticks to the arteries that will kill you...". he had low cholesterol. in fact most of the people i know who are heart patients have low cholesterol.

secondly, after my recent cholesterol screening which showed an increase in all my levels after a serious medicated approach towards lowering it, my doctor asked if i had had beef or pork within 48 hours of screening. i had had some stir fry the night before. less than 2 oz. he said that was enough to skew the results. hmmm. so i'm thinking this next time that i will do the veggie thing for 3-4 days ahead of time. no fat, no red meats, no sugar, no caffeine, just soups, oats, wine, and lots of fruits. i figure that he is telling me that the foods within a 48 hour span will skew the readings good or bad. my choice. kind of defeats the whole cholesterol thing if we can cheat the readings.

one other thing. my son who is a chemistry major at a university, in addition to a woman i know who did her thesis on cholesterol, both have told me that diet does very little to reduce cholesterol. and the only way to increase the HDL levels is to increase muscle mass, which as we all know decreases up to 7%/yr after the age of 45. so even if we 'exercise' an hour or two or three a week, which is good, it will not increase our HDL. it will help us aerobically, though.

inaddition, the only way i found to make any significant impact on LDL was a weird diet that was heavy on some veggies, a lot of beans, extremely low on fat, and a significant reduction on sugar. i mentioned this once before on here and i know i should do it again, but it is hard to maintain. but if you are interested this is what worked for me.

replace any and all products you can with smart balance products. they contain omega 3 oils. don't use vegetable oil in any way shape or form. use olive oil. eliminate eggs or at least substitute with fake eggs and limit their intake to no more than two eggs a week. eliminate pork. reduce beef. grind your own burger unless you like ground turkey. don't eat beef more than once a week. boiled or grilled is best. eat at least two meatless dinners (suppers) a week. eat fish at least once a week. grilled is preferred. eat as much fresh vegetables as possible and naked. no seasonings, no sauces, no butter. if need be, douse with a little olive oil. eat fruits, fresh or canned. don't eat pineapple, pears, nectarines or figs. don't eat olives. i made sandwhiches of cucumber, tomato, lettuce on pita bread. sparingly tossed with no fat mayo. for breakfast, a serving of oatmeal, no sugar, no butter, with a two tablespoons of wheat germ. every other day i had a slice of toast with my oatmeal with smart balance oleo and a tablespoon of wheat germ. i put wheat germ in my sandwhices. i put wheat germ on my salads. i ate a lot of soup. i made a goal of a daily intake of less than 20 grams of fat, mono, poly, saturated, if it was fat i counted it and kept it under 20 grams. then i took it one step further and tried to eat more grams of fiber per day than fat. once in a while i did. but let me tell you, 20+ grams of fiber a day is hard to consume much less the toll it takes on you. i also eliminated dairy products, but that was because i became lactose intolerant. anyways after six months of this i reduced my cholesterol from a total of 250 to 210. whoopee! however, my trigycerides normalized, and my HDL ratio improved drastically, so overall it did good, but it didn't take the total level down much. i also was taking 4 garlic pills a day, six fish oil pills, flaxseed oil, niacin, aspirin, baycol, and a variety of other OTC vitamins. after another six months of this my cholesterol leveled out around 220. i gave up and in the last ten years it has increased to about 240. whoopee. the upside to that diet is that i lost 40 pounds, which probably had more to do with lowering my cholesterol than anything i ate or did.

so you see, cholesterol is a funny thing. it causes us to worry, (stress buildup), it causes us to buy all kinds of things to reduce our levels, it causes us to use cholesterol reducing medecines which enrich the pharm companies, it causes us to see a doctor more frequently which adds to the overall medical costs and burden on the medical field, it causes us to take test after test after test which helps increase our insurance premiums. so cholesterol does a lot, but not necessarily to us.

in summary, what one should take from this is that we need to eat a better diet. we need to exercise. we do need to take cholesterol screenings, but as a means of reference levels instead of something to discuss with everyone else on its perils.

good luck and good day

Barney Please give us an example of the kind of soups you eat. Do you have meat in them or are thy all veggetable soups.
I love soups but the only one I know is chicken with lots of veggies.
I am still taking Lovastatin.

In reply to Lenox,

Your reference to Lovastatin being called the "dumb drug" comes from the risk of cognitive problems on statins. Its not just lovastatin, but any statin has the potential to do this.

I witnessed my father lose his mind on zocor. And I witnessed a friend lose short term memory on Lipitor. I have read acount after account from statin users suffering memory problems on statins. Including Dr. Graveline who suffered TGA's ( amnesia) on lipitor. FDA's medwatch has plenty of complaints on memory problems with statins.

Why does this happen? There actually is a clear undisputable reason this happens. Dust off your old college biology books and start reading.

The Human cerebral cortex, (your brain) is about 50% cholesterol in dry weight. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that the brain is dependent on cholesterol to function properly. We also know the human nervous system is dependent on adequate amounts of cholesterol. Your nervous system is in the brain as well as the rest of your body. The brain depends on proper nerve impulses to function properly.

When we take statins, we interfere with the body's ability to call up for more "bad cholesterol" when its needed. LDL deprivation can manifest itself with memory problems.

Lovastatin and Red Rice Yeast are one in the same. In the states you can purchase red rice yeast at the local health food store. But it bears the same risks as lovastatin because it IS lovastatin, just at a fraction of the cost.

anthe, i ate, god help me for telling anyone this, healthy request, or something like that. once again, i just picked low fat, low cholesterol and ate only the req serving size. they were nasty tasting. more than anything, by trying to eat more fiber than fat in a day will cause you to lose weight, when combined with a moderate amount of exercise.

anthe, i ate, god help me for telling anyone this, healthy request, or something like that. once again, i just picked low fat, low cholesterol and ate only the req serving size. they were nasty tasting. more than anything, by trying to eat more fiber than fat in a day will cause you to lose weight, when combined with a moderate amount of exercise.

everyone does realize that cholesterol is a necessary part of our health, don't they? it has a positive value to our physical well being in that it will help to repair any internal damage to our vessels and arteries. the danger comes when it over reacts and then causes life threatening blockage. doctors, based on statin sells, right medlab, will try to make you to believe that if you have little or low levels then you will be spared arterial blockage. when in reality it isn't the amount that you have, but it's ability to clot and continue clotting that will present the danger. even low levels of cholesterol can kill.

take for example a very good friend of mine. he had low cholesterol. he had some angina. the doctor recommended an angiogram. they did and they implanted two stents; one in the right coronary and one in the left coronary. less than 4 months later he was walking across the plant and felt a little winded. he thought it was odd, so he went to see the doctor. they did another angiogram and discovered the two stents were almost 100% blocked and that the blockage was much more severe than original. they did a quintuple bypass. when the stents are placed, they damage the arteries. cholesterol will patch the damage, like a scab. if you are the kind that will continue clotting, then you are the kind that is destined to have a bypass, if you are lucky.

now ironically, the medical field has developed doped stents that reduce the likelyhood of clotting or blockages to almost 0%. however, most insurance companies won't pay for them because they cost more than a regular stent even though they have been proven to reduce the chance of having bypass, which is very costly. aint that a kick...