My Wife’s High Cholesterol

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Last year my wife mentioned something off-hand about having really high cholesterol. I wanted to know the details, but she was extremely good at changing the subject. I can’t fault her, it’s not a fun topic. The common reaction is to ignore it and hope it goes away.

This past week, it was time for my wife to get another check. As a member of the military it’s included in her yearly physical. The results came in late last week: 284mg/dL total cholesterol. The American Heart Association says puts the high risk level at over 240mg/dL. It turns out that the total cholesterol doesn’t tell the whole story.

Cholesterol 101
It gets quite a bit more complicated, but in general there are two types of cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). You may hear the terms “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol.” The bad cholesterol is the LDL. If you have a high count, you may be increased risk for heart disease or stroke. HDL, the good cholesterol, can help counter the bad cholesterol. In general, you want to increase the ratio HDL to LDL. If you have enough HDL, your total cholesterol might not be a big problem. As always check with your doctor before you assume this to be the case.

Now that you understand what the numbers mean, my wife’s LDL levels are 204mg/dL and her HDL is 80mg/dL. That’s a good HDL number. However, that LDL makes the American Heart Association’s very high risk range.

In many ways my wife won the genetic lottery. In the gift of good cholesterol that doesn’t appear to be the case. She already follows most of the recommendations for improving her cholesterol. She has never smoked, maintains a healthy weight (good body mass index), and gets about 60 minutes of aerobic exercise about 4-5 days a week at the gym. She maintains a great diet with at least a bowl of oatmeal a day. (Fiber is reported in numerous studies to be helpful for lowering cholesterol).

The doctor wants her to come back in to discuss her options. It’s a near certainty he’ll already have a prescription for Lipitor already written out when she walks in the door. Unfortunately, Lipitor (and other related statins) might not be an option for her. Later this week, I’ll explain why and what our other options might be.

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Posted by Lazy Man on February 20, 2008 in Sickness Prevention.

3 Responses to “My Wife’s High Cholesterol”

kitty Says:
February 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Have you actually used the Framigham calculator on American Heart Association website to quantify your wife’s ABSOLUTE 10-year risk of a heart attack: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3003499 - click on “Learn your risk”, registration is optional. You may be (pleasantly) surprised. You can play with the numbers to see how much reduction in LDL would affect them. The website you reference is very misleading in that it confuses absolute risk with relative risk. Even with a high relative risk increase because of high LDL, it is perfectly possible to have low ABSOLUTE risk if other parameters - triglicerides, HDL, blood pressure, etc. are OK. If one’s absolute risk of heart attack because of all these factors is only 1% and high cholesterol increases it by, say, 50%, it’ll still only be 1.5%. An increase from 1% to 1.5% is a whole lot less scary than “increase by 50%”. Same with the benefit of drugs - if something reduces your risk from 6% to 4%, for example, and that after 10 years you better be sure that the risk of side effects is less than 2%.
Susan Says:
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
It’s got to be frustrating, especially when making a health a priority. My total cholesterol level tends to be less than ideal (probably genetic). It’s very sensitive to what I eat! Exercise is even more important to me because it raises my HDL and keeps the LDL in check.

Your wife’s HDL is excellent (most likely from exercising), she eats right, she isn’t overweight, and she takes care of herself, in general. All those things will help lower her risk of cardiac disease.

I’m curious to see what the doctor recommends.
Lazy Man and Health » Lowering Cholesterol Without Prescription Drugs Says:
April 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am
[…] week I mentioned that my wife’s cholesterol was off the charts in a very bad way. This is despite her healthy eating habits and exercising 4-5 times a […]