In addition to Duane, and in Response to azoom_20:

Those of you who are STILL talking about ways to lower cholesterol- naturally or with damaging drugs- are missing the point!!!  The "numbers" are arbitrary.  I am a Nutritional Therapist and what I suggest is to either not worry about it if you are a healthy individual, or if you do worry about it, check your levels when you are healthy.  Get your numbers at your regular checkups, and if, over time, you notice an unhealthy change in the numbers, then you MAY have a problem.  (Elderly people should have higher numbers as it represents brain function and reduces chances of developing memory loss and dementia.)  So the bottom line is: DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE NUMBERS IF YOU ARE HEALTHY.

azoom_20:  Vegetarianism may be your problem.  Fats are the nutrient your body uses to manage inflammation.  The prostaglandin hormones are made from fatty acids, and these are the regulators of the inflammatory/anti-inflammatory process.  Healthy animal fats are where you will get your best sources of regulating fatty acids in proper balance.  Grass-fed beef is the best source of a healthy ratio of Omega 6: Omega 3.  Vegetarian and Vegan diets are mostly high in Omega 6 fatty acids, and (through a conjugation process that I don't have enough room to write about) can lead to inflammation.  I suggest a diet right for your metabolic type, and mainly high in animal fat from sustainable, pastured sources (www.westonaprice.org).  Yes, genes can create a predisposition for artery disease, but if you make the right nutritional steps, and you are healthy, you needn't worry about your cholesterol levels.

A HUGE POINT for the medical community regarding the "cholesterol" arguement is this "particle size of LDL" that Mercola mentioned.  THIS is important to pay attention to, and is fascinating!

The main point here is that lowering or raising cholesterol is not the main problem. The body uses cholesterol to repair tissues and to replace old cells. When you hear about bad cholesterol and good cholesterol, that just the misunderstanding that when people have haert attacks and they see the arteries full of cholesterol, they make the good and bad saying.

It is your lifestyle. Remember... cholesterol will ONLY stick to your arteries of they get damaged. This protects against holes in your arteries when you get damaged. Similar to when you get a cut and your immune system works and you get a "scab". IT THE SAME THING WITH YOUR ARTERIES!. WHEN THEY GET CUT THEN CHOLESTEROL MAKES A SCAB. this is a defense system so you don't die.

You have to figure out what is damaging arteries and then stop damaging your arteries so you dont keeps making your body have to stick cholesterol to repair damage. Now... what cause damage to arteries?

1. TRANS FATS (HYDROGENATED/PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS) they put this in most junk foods and fast food

2. HOMOGENIZED MILK- the way GOD intended for milk to be drunk, man had messed it up. YES RAW MILK FROM A HEALTHY COW THAT EATS HERB IS HEALTHY AND GOOD FOR YOU. Most of COW MILK in the grocery is homogenized.

3. FLOURIDE IN DRINKING WATER- Not as serious, the first two are the bulk of the damage.

We have to do these principles on Earth if we want to restore our health

1. Eat the foods GOD created for food(avoid everything else)

2. Eat the foods GOD created before man changes them into something they might think is better

3. Don't let ANY food or drink become your GOD (Avoid food addictions)

Thank you for reading, may you prosper and be in health as well as your soul.

After a heart attack in 2005 at 44 years old, my wife, a cardiac nurse insisted that I take the "ORs" my doctor prescribed. Later that year I was diagnoised with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma and after a failed chemo, I started researching and stumbled upon the cholestrol facts and myths. I stopped taking all statins. A shoulder and neck injury from 2003 finally made me give in to rebuilding my shoulder, but before I could do the surgery, I had to get 2 Onocologists and 1 Cardiologist to agree. The Onos were easy since I refused anymore of the killer meds, the cardio wasn't. My cancer looked good in blood tests, my cholestrol was very bad. My wife screamed "I told you not taking the statins would clog up the stints". The doctor said pretty much the same. When I agreed to do the heart cath, my stints were just like the day he placed them and the small amount of blockage left in the left side was just as it was. That was last year.

 Of course I didn't argue with the dr or my wife until I was in recovery, but as soon as the coast was clear, it was my chance to say I told you so. There are a lot of things broken in our oxymoron words of health care these days.  

just a note about my hubby who had a cholesterol of 250, and ended up in the hospital because of irregular heart beat.  He eventually was submitted to a catheterization which determined that his arteries were clear.  Since then he does not worry about cholesterol at all.

azoom_20,

Try eating more raw foods, including raw fruits in small amounts to get your carbs.  You're a primate, after all!  Fatty liver syndrome; the precursor disorder to unbalanced[let us not say "high"] cholesterol, is caused by overconsumption of grain starches as well as animal fat(Reality Chef--hearken!), and raw foodists, or those eating a high raw produce diet, are known for well-balanced cholesterol and blood glucose levels.  The body does need small amounts of saturated fat to maintain correct cholesterol ratios, so eat coconut oil, avocados, some fatty nuts, and raw milk--preferably goat's.  And as for grains: remember that ones such as quinoa and millet are rich in protein and low in starch, and buckwheat isn't a grain but a mineral rich seed.  So you may consume these in small amounts with little ill effect.  Good luck!

I'm a fan of Dr. Mercola for the most part.  I have always done the best that I could to take care of myself (nutrition, excercise, etc.).  The suggestion/question that I have is what about legal and politic aspects?  I mean that most of the articles and the comments don't want the government to force us to take drugs (statins for one).  But what do we do about it?  It seems that we are going to be mandated to get health insurance.  With governmental health insurance comes forcing people to take drugs.  Both presidential candidates seem to want the government in our lives even more.  My thoughts are that the government has made this mess, why would we trust them to give them MORE control of our bodies?

I believe that I wrote a comment about my situation earlier.  I was held in the hospital (forced overdoses of benzodiazipines) and forced to take harmful (life threatening) drugs.  Almost four years later, I'm still trying hard to get rid of the side effects and get back to "normal".  I've not even been able to find a way to report this incident.  And believe me I have tried.  It seems to me that incidences like this happen often; women who are threatened of taking their kids to force them to take drugs; "tagging" Alzheimer patients; etc.  So please take my point, I really don't want a replay of this incident.

Do you have any thoughts in the area of this broad subject?  Have you ever seen any groups who deal with this kind of situations (and according the AMA, there are 1.5 million people harmed every year by hospitals)?

Kathy

hello...in a post Duane declared that flouride is not as bad as some other [chemicals]...however i beg to differ. Flouride is a potent poison and may be implicated in a number of disease processes including Alzheimers   which is reaching epidemic proportions. This and all such sites should either be monitored or acted upon with caution.

High Cholesterol & High Triglycerides are in my "genes", it runs in the family ;-)

I have what they call a "familial hypercholesteromia."   Here are my numbers.

First number without drug - (Second number with Lipitor 10 mg) :

Chol: 254 (164)

Triglycerides: 320 (192)

HDL: 41 (50)

LDL: 151 (80)

Believe me, over the past 30 years, I have tried countless "natural" measures, like : fish oil supplements, exercises, no fat whatsoever, no glucose. I am a 90% vegetarian (I still eat fish, never breaded), no fries, no ice cream..... hmmm !  What more can I do?

The culprit is familial, no way I can change my liver.  Last year, I decided to stop taking Lipitor, my doctor blasted me, but I said: "Hey, this is my body, not yours!"  But, my recent numbers (first row) are way out the chart.

Dr Mercola talks about a "no grain - no sugar" diet.  What does it mean? No rice, no wheat, no buckwheat, no quinoa, no bread, etc. in a word, no pasta (I'm kinda vegetarian, you know!), and no carbohydrates, so no fruits (dried or fresh)... Errr... you mean I will have to eat like a herbivore... only salads... come on, the're must be a solution!

Can someone offer me a solution?

Much thanks for reading me  ;-)

Unfortunately, all of those who speak about nutrition know just enough to be dangerous. There is no single remedy for all of you that have elevated cholesterol levels. Dr. Mercola has been recommending us in almost every article to eat according to our unique and individual metabolic type. I finally bought the book "The metabolic typing" by William Wolcott and Trish Fahey. It is an amazing book, an answer to all of my questions and you will understand by reading this book why some of you can lower your cholesterol by eating plenty of butter while others have to follow a low fat diet for the same purpose. It's because we all have different body biochemistry and we metabolize food differently, some of us are protein type, some carbohydrate type and others are 10 million combinations in between. And this is only putting it in a very simplistic way. For those of you who think that cannot take the time to read and understand and than start a long journey of getting to know its body, I think the best solution is to find a nutritionist in your area who can run a metabolic profile on you and go from there. Not only that your cholesterol level will improve, everything else will improve, especially your energy level and your mood.

I know statins are not good I was in the ER a few years ago from what i was takeing feeling i was having a heartatack. My heart started to race from the time I started the pills but was told I need to give them Time for my Body to get used to them. Three month later i was in the ER. My Cholesterol is almost 300 and i feel i need to do something but i do not like taking Pills at all so not i take a 1/2 every 2-3 days.I feel it is that changing of food intake or waht you eat that would help me so I need to find the answers there if anyone has good imformation help. Thanks so much

Funny this article showed up because I got this one on it yesterday. You can lower your cholesterol naturally with food, check it out here:   Foods that lower cholesterol:  If that doesn't work try this link:

healthcorner.walgreens.com/.../1525.htm

I know an anesthesiologist who is dead set against statin drugs. He says they are the worst class of drugs being made.

He likes to say, "They lower cholesterol and cause heart attacks."

Btw, I eat a lot of butter. My cholesterol was 200 when it was checked several months ago with the HDL at 62, for a ratio of 3.2. My triglycerides were only 89.

Maybe what doctors should do is to prescribe butter to their patients with cholesterol issues. ;-)

I also sporadically take arginine which raises HDL.

The best to you.

Kelley Eidem, author

Excellent summing up of a disastrous health practice. Almost every patient I see who is over 40 and has visited their doctor is taking Lipitor and Aspirin.  I use the articles and recommend the website when teaching nutrition students and patient groups.    

My cholesterol goes up and down depending on the amount of stress I am under.  It has been high (to the docs) since having kids.  It runs around 280 when under a lot of stress, and around 220 when I am doing better. One of the lowest reading I have had in the last few years was just after an elimination diet so maybe it is food allergies for me that have an impact too.  I also found that different labs seem to get different results.  I had the VAP (done at a different lab than normally) where they check all the LDL a,b,c and every time they took that, my cholesterol was lower.  Hmmm.  Fortunately except for the LDL and total being high, I have no other markers - good crp, Lpa, HDL, low bp, low homocysteine etc.  So I have never let them coerce me into the statin trap.  As a side note, I have met several people who either had heart attacks or knew someone who did and the cholesterol was actually low so I don't know how they get away with telling people that the cholesterol is the culprit.