heart attack risk

[rachelh69]

I had my cholesterol tested and several other tests recently. My DR said my heart attack risk was 1 in 4 by age 60. I'm 34. I don't smoke, exercise and eat a low fat diet, no family history of heart attack, MOm has had several strokes caused by HBP, arteries are all clean.
My total cholesterol was 188. HDL is 41. LDL is 128. Triglycerides is 94. Sugar was 85(after 16 hour fast). My DR said I was doing good but I need to improve those numbers and suggested red grape juice or red grapes, raisins, add almonds, pecans or walnuts to my diet and niacin(250 mg), also suggested a vegetarian diet(I already eat almost no meat) otherwise take an aspirin a day. I asked about the niacin because I'm concerned that the numbers need to be better.
One of the problems has been steady weight gain over the past year and no matter what I do(short of starving) I can't get it down. My thyroid is fine and there doesn't seem to be any reason for the weight gain. A few months back my DR put me on a really strict diet of breakfast and lunch and no dinner. I'm pretty much able to stick to the two meals a day.
It seems for the past year I haven't been able to lose, I just keep gaining. My cholesterol numbers have gotten worse in the past year. I've accepted at this point that I'm going to have to adopt pretty much a vegetarian diet and as little fat as possible. And if I don't lose then I have no idea how I'm going to get it off short of just not eating.
For the past year I've been on metoprolol(75 mg) for tachycardia.
Anyway, does anyone know how those heart attack risk factors are determined? 1 in 4 doesn't sound too good to me.

[ARIZONA73]

rachelh69,

Your numbers aren't really all that bad, except that your HDL could be better. A higher HDL would most certainly improve things all around. Niacin can be quite effective at raising HDL, but the problem is, I'm not so sure that 250mg is nearly enough to have any significant effect. Maybe 1000mg. But 250? I don't know about that. Of course, it's probably best to start with a lower dose, and then gradually increase it over time.

Anyway, your risk is probably about average. Risk factors are generally based on statistical averages. But if you are able to increase your HDL, say to about 60, then you will have lowered your overall risk.

I can't say for certain exactly what is causing your weight gain, but I looked up Metoprolol, and it listed "sudden weight gain" as one of the side effects.

[rachelh69]

Arizona,
I'm curious, what website was that on? I've looked up the side effects of metoprolol before but never saw weight gain as a side effect.
I know I've read other peoples stories about weight gain with beta blockers.
I know one thing I have to have the medicine(it works pretty well with no other side effects) but the weight gain has to stop.

[zip2play]

rachel,

All beta-blockers have this very undesirable side effect...I gained nearly 10 pounds in 14 days on atenolol and needed to squeeze EXTREMELY hard on the calories to reverse the trend!
After 30 days I jettisoned the drug.

The cause and effect is very easy to see since beta-blockers work by slowing the heart rate and force of each pulse (along with OTHER muscles unfortunately)...but just the cardiac effect is enough to cause the most energy intensive organ of the body to drastically lower it's caloric needs. AND WORSE the favored fuel of cardiac muscle is teeny bits of fat molecules (acyl-CoA.)

This class of drugs is probably the dieter's worst enemy (well ALMOST ...nothing beats PREDNISONE for porking-up.)

[rachelh69]

Unfortunately, I can't stop taking the medicine. When I was put on it my pulse rate was going up to 160, 170 and it has worked very well at slowing my pulse. Now I average around 60, 65. Sometimes laying down I'll go up to 90 or 95 but overall I'm doing good.
When I started the medicine I was already a little overweight but fortunately my weight gain hasn't been as bad as yours was. I average a 2 to 4 pound weight gain every time I go to the DR which is every three months. The problem has been getting it off and stopping any more weight gain.
One problem has been the fact that over the past few months I've had alot of back problems which for a couple of months made exercise impossible. I'm back to exercising every day but I can't do as much(I can't walk as far as I was before or stay on the stationary bike quite as long). I'm gradually trying to increase my exercise time.
I've heard some complain about atenolol and propranolol and it sounds like they are even worse than the one I'm on and mine's bad enough. I got lucky and didn't get the tiring(can't go) side effects that some complain about.