When I turned 45 my doctor prescribed me Lipitor for no other reason than he thought my age warranted it and my HDL was lower than desired. I’ve never had an issue with cholesterol before and my LDL numbers are generally around 100 or so (normal range).
I took it for several weeks and noticed I just didn’t feel right. Lethargic and foggy. My LDL dropped to something like 25 which is really low.
So I just stopped taking it and haven’t had any issues since. Pissed my doc off so I changed doctors and found someone who actually listens to me.
Kinda mixed bag, and mostly smaller and not definitive studies. Very low LDL is associated with decreased cardiovascular events, but increased stroke, depression, suicide and some cancers. Most studies are done by cardiologists, who pretty much don’t care about anything but your heart (only somewhat jesting) and for them, it’s absolutely clear: lower LDL, better cardiac outcome. However, that does not translate to better quality of life. A rarely discussed fact of the early statin studies was that although cardiac events went down dramatically in the treatment arm, overall death rates were similar mostly due to increased suicides.
My advice? Lay off refined sugar. Hell, minimize all sugars, artificial sweeteners, agave, honey, whatever. Eat a diet rich in assorted veggies, decrease meat and increase fish and work out at least 140 min per week where you sweat and breath hard. I throw in weight lifting, but thats because i like it. No, i am not a cardiologist. I am not on statins, although i have also been told that at my age i should be. YMMV, but it is your life. I love my life, and am happy to live it mostly drug free.
Well damn. Antihistamines and the meds I take for insomnia (both for over 15 years) are then both likely contributors to the short term memory issues I’ve been experiencing. Ugh. Tough choices…live with sheer exhaustion/rage and chronic sinusitis, orrrrr have a functioning brain now AND later. Decisions, decisions.
For what its worth, both [the friend who told me about antihistamine’s effects] and I regularly take them. I’m alergic to the grasshoppers I work on, and many days I’d be non-functional without antihistamines.
This showed up way back in the first clinical trials of statins. The subjects were dying less from cariovascular issues, but dying more from violence-related causes, so the net effect was negative.
I can’t help fixating on the sub-title and giggling, considering how often we see people glorifying “bio-hacking” and DIY drug manufacture… “There is no room for amateurs in drug culture”
How long did it take you to develop an allergy to the grasshoppers you work on? Are you also allergic to pre-ground coffee, or is that mainly limited to entomologists that deal with cockroaches?
Nothing your steady diet of ghost peppers and mushroom-meat blends can’t overcompensate for though, eh? (Hm. Watched vegetable drawers never eat up? I’ll have to try again with Thai Peppers next crop to try to get there.)
Doctors prescribed blood pressure meds and a statin when I was diagnosed as type 2 diabetic 20 years ago, even though neither my blood pressure nor my cholesterol readings at the time called for them. Since the diabetes increases my risk for cardiovascular problems, the drugs were prescribed for prevention rather than need. I suspect I was just as much of a jerk before I started taking Lipitor as I am now.
And you can “Ok Boomer” me until you’re blue in the face, unless something radical happens to change our diets and medical system, as your generation gets into your 50s and 60s and beyond, it’s more likely that you will be eating a handful of meds and vitamins every day in the future than not.
