Everyone in my family suffers from high cholesterol but I shouldn’t say suffer because no one has had any ill effects. Heart disease is relatively unknown in my family but it is very common that family members will have cholesterol levels approaching 300. My cholesterol levels where consistently in the 300 range as well and when I turned 45 my doctor strongly suggested I consider a daily dose of a prescription Statin to lower the numbers. I resisted and was successful in reducing my numbers through diet. I had always exercised and was very active. When I turned 50 my diet was no longer able to control the cholesterol numbers and I agreed to the daily Statin. The side effects were unpleasant. I exercise at a high level daily. I lift weights, run, play basketball, bike etc.. and I had muscle soreness like I had never had before. I would get DOM delayed onset muscle soreness two days after a workout so I had to cycle my workouts to avoid the soreness. This also limited my athletic play and sports because I was always sore. There was never a day that went by that some muscle group wasn’t sore and if I worked that group out it worsened it. I came to believe that this was just a condition of growing old that I would have to live with and I compensated with NSAIDS. Once the research came out on the dangers of NSAIDs I discontinued their use and suffered daily with sore muscles. I began to look at the research on Statins and saw that over the years the desired cholesterol numbers goal had been steadily reduced. 280 to 240 to 200 and now possibly 180 and if you have had a heart attack under 100. But even with the widespread use of Statins and the continual pushing down of the numbers there was an increase in heart disease and persons with low cholesterol levels were still having heart attacks.
What does this mean? Studies indicate that cholesterol numbers don’t really matter. LDL particle size has been found to be correlated to heart disease. LDL particles can be small and dense or large a fluffy. Large and fluffy has shown to be good. Small and dense LDL particles are not so good as they are more likely to stick to artery walls and cause problems. So what is the moral to this story. In my opinion and no I’m not a doctor, cholesterol numbers are not really good markers for the risk of heart disease but the particle size of your LDL cholesterol can be. I guess I have to say it, size does matter. I discontinued my Statin and even at 62 have much less muscle soreness. While I still get some DOM it is not as severe and I am able to train around or avoid the problem. I do still worry about my cholesterol numbers my most recent tests tallied total cholesterol at 270. But, I can’t see myself returning to the Statin and the negative side affects knowing what I now know about cholesterol. Do your own research but I would strongly suggest diet and exercise as part of your daily prescription. If I can help contact me at [email protected]