Cholesterol and heart disease

My recent cholesterol levels are
tc : 205
hdl : 31
Trigs : 444
ldl : 85 direct
Blood pressure 124/72
Heart rate 65
My doctor is retesting me in 6 months. Should I be on medication at this time? My father dies of heart disease at age 53. my mom has heart disease and diabetes age 72. My 12 hour blood fast for diabetes was 201.
Thank you,
BreSue916

[erijon]

I would work to improve your numbers through life style changes at this point. Your concerns should be increasing your HDL which you can do through exercise, diet and using supplements such as Omega 3's and Niacin. Your Tri's are also high but can be brought in line by cutting empty carbs like breads, pastas sugars. If this fails I would consider a statin as you have a family history of heart disease in your family.

Also, did you mean that your fasting blood sugars were over 200? If so that is high, you should be under 100, especially given your family history for diabetes.

Hope this helps,

Jon

[ed34]

Personally I think your only problem is your trigs. Do you drink lots of alcohol or eat sugary things?
Your HDL is a little bit low, but again its all about ratio. Your LDL is very low, 2.2mmol/L and for heart diseased people in the UK they recommend 4mmol/L or less. You are well below the limit. You basically have 2.75 LDL lipids to every HDL. This is a great ratio.
Even if heart disease runs in your family, I wouldn't go onto medication unless they dramatically increase. If your Doctor recommends it, I would ask why, given your ratio is so good. My LDL was 278 in your numeracy, which is very high. But this gives you an idea. My HDL was 34.75 giving me a ratio of  1 hdl to 8 ldl. Not nearly as good as yours.
Taking statins and ezetrol, my ratio is not 1:3 which is still not as good as yours but I am well within heart disease limits.

[erijon]

The recent PROCAM study determined that there is still a risk of CAD inpatients with low HDL even if they meet current guidelines for levels of LDL as stated below;

Low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and raised triglycerides, affecting millions of patients worldwide, are strongly linked to significantly increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) even in patients who achieve or surpass current low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) targets.

This has been demonstrated in new analyses of the landmark Prospective Cardiovascular Munster (PROCAM) and the REsiduAl risk Lipids and Standard Therapies (REALIST) surveys, the latter funded and conducted by the Residual Risk Reduction Initiative Foundation or R3i. These data have been presented today at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress.


Here's a link to the article, interesting read.........

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20090903/Low-HDL-cholesterol-and-high-triglycerides-linked-to-increased-risk-of-CHD.aspx


Jon