Should I be worried about my cholesterol?

get on a 20mg satin and you'll be fine. I'm 37 with similar numbers, and started a satin last year and my cholesterol has dramatically improved.

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That's going to be quite revealing...

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What will a medication reveal?

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5'11" 200 lbs

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You need to lose 20 to 25 pounds. You don't have to get on a statin for majority of people it can be corrected by proper diet and exercise. You need to be doing more cardio.

I took Crestor 20 MG daily for maybe 6 months. Cholesterol dropped from 220 ish to 160 ish, but I ached like hell, hips, knees, ankles, seriously walked around like an old bull rider. Dropped back to 3 days a week and the pains went away dang near within days. Eventually dropped down to 2 days a week and still hovering in the 160s without any problems.

Thanks, I’m glad that’s an option

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You need to lose 20 to 25 pounds


People will not be happy with this, but it’s true

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It may also not make a bit of difference. I lost 25 lbs from 210 to 185 without a change and then lost 20 more to 165, again without a drop in cholesterol. 20 mg rosuvostatin a day and now my cholesterol is significantly improved.

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Any side effects that you've noticed?

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No, none whatsoever. I still lift and run regularly. I'm 5'11 185 and in pretty decent shape. It just runs in my family, so I knew I would need to address it at some point.

What’s the sub categories of your LDL look like? LDL-pattern A (big fluffy, low risk) and pattern B (small dense, atherogenic).

Doctors like to lump these two together without seeing the whole picture. If you’re eating a lot of meat then your LDL-A is probably higher. If you’re eating a lot of processed foods and sugar, LDL-B is probably higher

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What does your doctor say?

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The only thing she told me at my last checkup was that my numbers look good, and that she didn't think I needed to increase the dosage. She did mention that the higher dosage could lead to those things, but that 20mg seems to be doing the job.

I understand life after 40 might be different, but I don't think it will have to do with the 20mg of crestor I'm taking.

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My results came back that I have high cholesterol. Total is 290. LDL is 215. HDL and Tri are normal. How big of a deal is this? I'm not big on taking medicine but also don't want to ignore something major

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This is high. Definitely would not ignore it. That said, cholesterol is extremely complex and the HDL/LDL good/bad view is antiquated. Apo-B is a much better risk marker than just LDL and total cholesterol. But it isn’t offered on a standard panel and will have some cost associated.

Being overweight with high cholesterol absolutely increases your risk of ASCVD or a cardiac event. That said, these are long term risks and based off of population studies.

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Cholesterol isn't a problem as long as you are in good metabolic health.

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I’d have to see the rest of your numbers but as a general rule with cholesterol that high you likely are not in good metabolic health.

If you do not want to get on meds, lose 20-25 lbs and then retest. If the numbers do not change it may be time to revisit diet. In my experience high consumption of red meat would also increase HDL (again, this is just my experience and anecdotal so take for what it’s worth) so given that your HDL is low and your LDL very high I assume you haven’t been on carnivore very long at the time of your visit, or your diet isn’t as good as you may think.

Of course, if you don’t want to look into Apo-B testing and testing more frequently, you could always just get on a statin. Either way I would still focus on getting that weight down and incorporating more low intensity cardio.