yackedar

Hi Flowergirl,

It would appear that I am in exactly the same situation as yourself.
Having had a TC of 4.4-4.6 mmol/L (@175mg/dl), LDL of 2.8-3.4 mmol/L (108-130) and HDL of 1.3-1.4 mmol/L (@50-54) with no medication for the past six years or so, this was soon to change.
At the beginning of January this year, apparently a plaque ruptured somewhere in them miles of arteries and until recently have had an angina attack every morning within an hour of rising.
At the end of February I saw a Cardiologist who immediately doubled my intake of beta-blockers from 25-50mg daily and placed me on 40mg Simvastatin (Zocor), which by the way has superior positive study results in respect of Cardiac problems than Crestor, and at a lower dose. My cardiologist wants my LDL level below 1.6 mmol/L (61.9 mg/dl), where several studies have proven that this low level has shown to halt the growth of arterial plaque, and after thirteen weeks starts to reduce it's size.

However, after six weeks on Simvastatin my levels went from normal to these, and I am far from happy with these low levels for reasons I'll mention below.

TC: 3.2 mmol/L (123.7 mg/dl)
LDL 1.6 (61.9)
HDL 1.2 (46.4) Lowest ever HDL reading.
Trig's: 0.9 (79.7)

Now, what to do?
Well, I shall continue taking 40mg Simvastatin for two months, retest to see if the levels have decreased even more and then go to 20mg for two months and retest. Depending on the results I shall decide whether to stop taking Simvastatin, and start taking hawthorn berry tincture in addition to the 200mg COq10, 1.2g aged garlic and 8ozs pomegranate juice currently being taken daily.
Since adding the aged garlic and pomegranate juice to my daily intake two weeks ago, my weekly angina attacks have decreased from 7-10 per week to 4. This I have proven is not down to the action of Simvastatin.......not yet, anyway.

Looks like you have been reading the same science papers as I have.
The latest thinking by the world's most respected cardiologists is that saturated fats etc. are not the cause of high cholesterol levels, but yes, as you said, by inflammation within the arteries.
Inflammation caused by toxins within the blood stream damage our arteries, which apparently starts to happen once we are weaned off baby milk. ( Wow! cholesterol plaque found in little kids from the age of two.) To prevent damaged arteries from rupturing, LDL cholesterol adheres itself to the inflamed arterial section to seal it, along with whatever metal particles and toxins are around at that time. The first effects of plaque being present is the onset of Hypertension (High blood pressure). Overtime, plaque gets damaged by continuing inflammation and the process continues over and over.
Depending on the chemical makeup of the plaque, it is either soft or hard crusted (calcified) can lead to unstable or stable angina (respectively), heart attack or even death if the plaque has totally blocked an artery, or a blood clot blocks an artery after rupturing.

So, in the light of this way of thinking by the 'boffins', is LDL bad cholesterol?
No-one knows, but I know for sure that low levels of LDL, HDL and TC have proven to lead to several high risk medical conditions, including kidney failure, various forms of cancer and higher than average risk of a stroke.......and I for one will not continue to have cholesterol levels lower than those proven to be needed by the body to function as it should......Angina or not, so I will attack the root of the problem, inflammation, but not by conventional means, as in my eyes, swings and roundabouts is not good enough for my body.