My last post here escalated quickly, hopefully, this one won’t 🤷‍♂️

I am now coming off a statin after 3 years for 3 to 4 months to see if the side-effects I was suffering subside and to allow me to be referred to the lipid clinic.

My side effects were all well-known among statin takers (brain fog, low testosterone, weird stools, difficulty with building fitness and disrupted sleep). I hope a break will allow me to recover my health more fully and see a specialist.

Also, the statin causes unexplained extremely high levels of ferritin – so it would be good to bring them down as they are a heart disease indicator (statins are supposed to lower them in most people, but my levels have shot up with the statin).

The doctor told me it was all simply because I am 46 and to be expected, but as I am a healthy weight (5kg more than my racing weight when I was 19), and I do eat a very healthy diet, I’m not content with his explanation.

To combat cholesterol, keep inflammation under control and to help restore testosterone, are there any foods that you particularly recommend?

A typical day for me at the moment would look like:
*Tinned sardines or mackerel with avocado for breakfast
*A smoothie of raw beetroot, pomegranate seeds, blueberries and spinach – mid-morning.
*A homemade chicken salad for lunch – spinach, carrot, tomato, feta, some nuts, no dressing
*Haloumi or steak with homemade coleslaw, and homemade kale chips for dinner.

Snacks would be coconut cream, berries, almond butter and 85% dark chocolate. Only occasional black coffee. Lots of green tea and water. 2 glasses of red on a Friday or Saturday night.

And that’s 95% of what I eat. No supplements just now. So, what should I add (allergic to cow’s milk/conventional dairy, and wheat/gluten is a migraine trigger)?

Finally – there was a suggestion that I was a driveby Yank. I’m not. I’m in the UK and have read STW since 2002-ish. More road than mountain these days, but that’s most of us.

Dont see any Greggs steak bakes in your nutritionally devoid diet.

Couple of suggestions: Dr Aseem Malhotra with his Pioppi diet, he’s a cardiologist. Also Dr Terry Wahls who reversed her MS.

Awaits criticism from some Forumites!

No bacon!   That calls for a Simpson’s lynch mob!

Looks good to me! Add some porridge or other oats to your diet and a maybe use walnut oil for cooking, and you’re good to go. I quit statins a long while ago. My cholesterol level was 9.5 twelve years ago, and last week was 3.5. No pharmaceuticals involved! Plenty of red wine though!

PCSK9 inhibitors

Actual scientific evidence that they lower cholesterol and prevent bad things from happening to your heart.

Also Dr Terry Wahls who reversed her MS.

That’s not quite so clear cut as it was just diet, the chemo and electrical stimulation may have also played a part in reversal there. That said, I do try to follow a specific diet to control MS (not wahls but I think similar in theory) so I believe that there’s something to it.

Your diet has a lot of meat based protein in it. That will not help your inflammation or testosterone levels. I recently realised that my back and legs get really stiff if I’ve eaten a lot of meat over the last few days. If I eat veggie that it all frees up again.

Radio 4 Food Programme has been covering nutrition in sports and in general periodically for the last year or so – check BBC Sounds App for some interesting stuff. I would also suggest watching the documentary film The Game Changers. There is a load of stuff in that film that could set you off reading up.
The Food Programme did warn though that we are in for a decade of new and conflicting advice of nutrition.

Add some turmeric to your food
Eat porridge or oats
Reduce red meat
Once a week make some simple Daikon with lean chicken soup (Not creamy soup) – only add salt for flavour. If you are taking medication avoid Daikon as it will neutralise or make them ineffective.
Have some Brazilian nuts and walnuts
Boil pandan leaves and drink the water like tea

weird stools

Useless without pictures.