Hi Katy
I have no medical qualifications and resisted taking statins so can only respond from a personal viewpoint (my husband takes them and I wish he didn’t)

When I started 5:2 it was because I was overweight (90.8kg) and my new doctor had blood tests done. Cholesterol was 7.2 and tryglicerides 3.2. He said lose weight or you will get type2 diabetes and you need statins for the cholesterol.
I had read about 5:2 (this was early 2013) and so started fasting.
14 weeks later 80.7kg, cholesterol 5.9 and tryglicerides 0.8.

I found that the fasting has changed my whole lifestyle – I look forward to it and am now about 70kg, and chol has stayed low. you don’t say how old you are (I’m 64) but (with my above qualification about no medical knowledge) I think it is worth a try without the statins. There was a very interesting program on ABC Catalyst in October last year on statins which is worth watching.

Hope it works for you
Vicki

Hi katykate, hi vicki

I did post a detailed reply about half an hour ago. And then the site fell over or at least I couldn’t get to it or indeed to any other website, or my email.

I was on statins for 14 years. They were necessary at the beginning but after a while the cholesterol was down to acceptable levels, finishing at 4.8. BP also plunged. Both of these results were largely due to 5:2. The doc was impressed enough with my weight loss, which is still happening BTW, to reduce my BP meds to a very low dose 2.5 mgs each, but wouldn!t budge on the statins.

That was until I recently told her during a telephone consultation – I stay out of the surgery as much as possible – that my research had revealed that the excruciating muscle pains I’d been suffering for the last year and a half might be a side effect of statins. Without missing a beat, she suggested I come off them “for a fortnight”. After a fortnight nothing had changed, so I stayed off the beastly things a bit longer. After a month the pain had gone and, touch wood, hasn’t reappeared. I’m still left with the odd cramp in the feet at night, but a few heel-toe exercises fixes it within minutes.

Needless to say, unless my cholesterol readings rocket, I won’t take statins even if they are prescribed. I also had katy’s experience after I was changed to a lower, cheaper brand of statins. I threw up for the first time in 33 years! Fortunately, I was quickly switched back onto the original brand.

In the UK quacks seem to think if you are 60+ you have to be on medication whether you like it, or need it, or not. It’s all about box-ticking and arse-covering, I suspect.

I too am sick of my meds! I am waiting and having blood taken in 6 weeks, so I won’t stop the medicine until then. I’m hoping my GP will say go for it. I am no medical professional but I say go for it. And after two months or so, have your numbers checked. P

lease post and let everyone know how you are doing! Good luck!

I don’t think you should rely on your gp for diet advice. One expert in the field of nutrition and obesity said that gps are not well educated about it. And now i understand its true. Many other scientists say the same.

So do your own research but don’t rely on websites from miscellaneous and unknown sources. Use them but look for more authoritative (better qualified) sources of information.

It turns out that low fat diets are a key cause of high cholesterol. If you’ve been eating low fat and high sugar or carbs all these years you might reducing the carbs, ditching the sugar and increasing your healthy fats will help you a lot. Read the ARt and Science of Low Carb by Phinney and Volek, Good Calorie, Low Calorie by Gary Taubes and even atkins for starters. I’m not suggesting that you go low carb. I think it might be great for diabetics but lowering carbs is good for everyone and with that comes an increase in fats. In turns out that fats are just not that bad for you. But you do have to watch the total calorie count and choose more vegetable fats from sources like olive oil, nuts and seeds. Some vegetables oils, literally oils are not so good. But butter it turns out is much better than margarine. Thank god i’ve been eating butter all my adult life. And it turns out low fat dairy is dumb too. Thank god my experiments with low fat diary were short lived. I knew it wasn’t right that good and delicious could be harmful.

My doctor recommemded I go on statins too, so when I came home I did some research on the net, what I found out made me decide not to take them, statins reduce cholesterol YES, but they don’t reduce heart disease unless your cholesterol is extreme (mine isnt) the whole connection between cholesterol and clogged arteries is dodgy, it turns out that it is possible to have arterial problems even though you have low cholesterol levels and it is also possible to have healthy artery’s with high cholesterol levels, it seems one of the factors is inflammation, with high inflammation cholesterol is more likely to be deposited on you artery walls as plaque.
the 5-2 diet should be usefull in reducing inflammation, you can check your inflammation levels with simple blood tests, C reactive protein CRP and ESR inflammation plays a part in not only heart disease, but also diabetes, arthritis, and many other diseases.

I am not an expert or doctor, it is only what I have read, I am not suggesting for one moment that anyone should give up statins.

Regards Stuart

Just found this thread. I’ve been on BP meds and statins for years. My BP was continuing to creep up despite medication and than I started 5:2. After a few months it had gone down by a huge amount. I’m hoping that as I get nearer to my target weight it drops more and the amount of medication can be reduced. I don’t know if it will ever be low enough to stop altogether but you never know. As for the high cholesterol, it was 8 and my GP said that it was too high to be caused by my diet, but I am going to stop taking them when I get to maintenance, wait for three months and then request a fasting cholesterol test.
I don’t have a problem with taking medication, but if I can keep my level within normal range by losing weight and getting as fit as possible that it the way to go IMO.

The other thing I have to say is that GPs are not specialists. It is the nature of their job to need to know a little about everything, so try as they might they don’t always get it right and often err on the side of caution.

Well done Surfking! You have taken control of your life and health. All the best, PVE

57 YO male; 11 weeks on the 5:2 and I was startled when my latest blood test came back with cholesterol and triglycerides in the desirable range for the first time ever. Doctor no longer nagging me about statins / fibrates. Result!

And the significant weight loss is a welcome bonus really…