High Cholesterol and diet

It depends on what is causing the high cholesterol. If you have high cholesterol because your body is producing too much then a change of diet will have a minimal effect but if a very poor diet is the culprit then changing your diet will be of some help.

What Niobe said. DH has familial hyperlipidaemia so no amount of good diet will correct that its high dose statin for him and no ill effects so that's OK. He has a naturally good diet anyway - doesn't like high fat things- perhaps that's nature trying to take care of him

Someone told me that those Benecol drinks can help.

my GP tells me diet has nothing to do with high cholesterol ,so when I refused to take statins and found an alternative for my OH he was happy to research it and give the go ahead .He says he tells other patients, who have the awful side effects with statins that my OH had ,to try Ubiquinol that has kept my OH's cholesterol steady and no side effects

Statins are out. they made billions for American pharma companies and now are not considered to be harmful. Doctors don't take them themselves.

I successfully got my high "bad cholesterol" down and my "good cholesterol" up, through diet. I did some research on saturated fat content of regular items in my diet and where relevant looked for better alternatives. I was really shocked by some of my regular items eg Salmon en-Croute - 21 grams of saturated fat per en-croute! A woman,s daily limit guideline is 20 grams"!
I changed to lower saturated fat alternatives eg Be Good to Yourself cheddar and crème fraiche; Flora Light spread etc. I never looked at fat content per se, only saturated fat content. I check food labels much more now and generally try to avoid high saturated fat items, with a few exceptions. Overall my saturated fat intake has drastically reduced. 3 months later I had a retest and my "Bad" cholesterol was well down, my "Good" cholestorol was well up. I also lost 1 stone; my weight has now levelled out.

After I had a heart attack then stents inserted a group of us patients had some talks about healthy eating, what to avoid etc. Similar advice to your's Madgran + limit on eggs.
Which I've stuck to more or less.
But the experts sometimes change their mind eg butter isn't so bad now, I sometimes treat myself.

Doctors don't take them themselves!!! Several doctors I know do.

Thanks everyone for the mix of comments.

I did manage to get my cholesterol down by diet to 4.5 and was well pleased with the results BUT GP still wanted me to take Statins, I'm reluctant because of the side effects when I last took them.
I decided to try another approach down the diet route so cut out meat and cheese and haven't eaten either for months.
Just had my bloods done last week and I've gone up to 5.4 so have no idea what is happening.
I've an appointment with the GP next week to discuss this and other health issues I have.
I really am absolutely fed up.

Niobe
I think what you said may be true for me and no amount of changing my diet will make much difference.
Perhaps when I speak to the GP he may have an answer for me.

The side effects from the statins that I took were horrendous and my physiotherapist was shocked at the effect on my leg muscles. I didn't realise for a while that the dreadful pain in my calves was from the statins as I had trouble with my achilles and was stupidly thinking that this was causing the pain. Doctors had targets and were rewarded for prescribing these evil (for many) drugs.

Why does your Dr want you to take them. The advice is if risk factors are over 10 on the risk chart ...I think you can get this on line but also you could ask your Dr about it. Do you know the breakdown of LDL and HDL cholesterol in those figures?

It’s not just about the breakdown of LDL and HDL, these tests should (and usually do) include triglyceride levels. These are equally, or even more, important.

Yes, the trigs are very important, and also the RATIO. You can have high HDL, but as long as the ratio is good, it's not a problem. Lots of info on Diabetes.co.uk. website, which is quite eye-opening!

What is "good" with the triglycerides? High or low?

MargaretX where is the evidence for your blanket statement "Doctors don't take them themselves"?

I'm sure Margaret X can answer for herself, but this is a Daily Mail story from 4 years ago:-

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2582958/Statins-Millions-healthy-Britons-set-prescribed-GPs-say-wont-statins.html

...and since then I've read more about the case of Dr Kailash Chand, who actually did take them, but was shocked at the side effects.

Someone once told me that the tendency to have blocked arteries from cholesterol is stronger in some people. And can be handed down in families.
So if you're like that, you need to be careful about diet plus take statins.
A specialist told me that my problem was probably due to 30+ years of smoking. As well as a grandparent on each side had angina.

MargaretX
When a heart surgeon tells you to stop taking them and keep off them something's amiss, isn't it?

Think triglycerides need to be low as they are definitely associated with heart disease.

Your total cholesterol might be higher than you’d like because that’s the total of both types and you might have a good helping of the ‘good’ cholesterol bumping up the total.

I would be very wary of getting health advice from the Daily Mail...

Drink as much as hot water to burn cholesterol.

???

jonathan Drink as much as hot water to burn cholesterol.

Pardon? Don't know what you mean!!