High cholesterol & EASA
 

Hello guys, I apologize if this come up as not that serious for some but I do not have anyone else besides a couple of teachers from whom I could get an experienced opinion.

I am currently a CPL student (still on ground school, zero flight time) and I just got my medical exam with high cholesterol according to current standards ( Total: 378, LDL: 277, HDL: 88 ). The national medical organization is telling me I should start a treatment to lower it. I assume start taking "Statins".

I have been on the carnivore diet for about 3 years. All I eat is raw meat, raw milk cheese, eggs and fruit. I feel good, I have energy. I wake up with a hard wood. I am sleeping good. Good mental focus. I am not saying all this is because of my diet but I do not find another reason. I am not that young at 35.

I am not sure about taking a medicine or changing my habits to eventually feel weaker beacuse the current doctors think high cholesterol is bad. And if it is bad I prefer dying feeling good.

Is there a way I can avoid taking the medicine? Is there an EASA minimum cholesterol level by law? Will high cholesterol stop me from obtaining the Class 1 medical?

Thanks to all that took the time to write .

MN

In Australia at least (Where the medicals seem to be crazy difficult) if your cholesterol is super high, they will insist on regular “stress ECGs” something a colleague does rather than take Statins.

I finally started taking Statins (hate taking anything, but have had High Cholesterol for a long time, and Statins have been recommended for a long time.)
i started mainly due recent findings where High LDL cholesterol was causing 7% of dementia. I’m less worried about death, than dementia. For my advanced age, 61, I’m in good shape swimming and cycling daily. This does not ward off dementia.

Statins are a bit controversial. That is, if you put internet theories in front of medical science, logic and reason.
Statins have been prescribed for decades. Any side effects are well recognised.
In my case, after 5 months there are zero side so far.

Firstly, if you've never had cholesterol testing previously, I would suggest repeating the test, ensuring to follow the advised fasting protocol.

Second, if your cholesterol is genuinely as high as you've shown, a test of thyroid function is ordinarily medically indicated. If your thyroid is genuinely low-functioning, treating this ordinarily will improve your cholesterol numbers somewhat. Also, statin use with low thyroid is a big no-no.

Thirdly, you are consuming a diet that was historically only known to kings, where kings were prone do developing oddball diseases. Most humans traditionally couldn't afford so much meat, cheese. Consider that you're performing an experiment of sorts with your diet that might be complicating your aviation aspirations.

Next, there are two important reasons to ensure that your activity/exertion level is routinely on the higher side. Increased exercise improves cholesterol numbers and most people know this. What most people don't know is that your vascular system will, if you consistently stress your musculoskeletal system with exertion, attempt to enhance "collateral" circulation. In other words, if you're routinely asking a lot of your main arteries, your smaller arteries are biologically encouraged to help deliver blood to tissues crying for more oxygen. This latter point is something that you have to earn by years of regular exercise.

If you ultimately go on a statin, and you don't want to take pills ever day, you can speak with your physician about every-other-day dosing (particularly with newer statins like rosuvastatin or atorvastatin).

Overall I'd encourage normalizing your diet while ensuring to remain in good shape with alternating forms of enjoyable exercise (an example described in post #2) if you wish to make a career out of flying.

You should see if many of your relatives have, or had, high cholesterol as genetics play a big part.

One colleague of mine didn't have a male relative who had made it past 55 and all had high cholesterol.

He was very slim, fit and otherwise healthy but whatever he did to his diet had a negligible effect - in the end only statins dropped his levels.

@That Light Normal: Thanks for the insight in statin and for answering. Glad to hear youre feeling great at 61. I wi sh I will be the same in the future.


@ Crab: Now that I analyze it the family record has been fantastic. No cronic or genetic major health problem so I believe it is because of my high fat diet.


@ Harold: Thanks a lot for the opinion. I exercise everyday, some days harder than others, I listen to my body and do not push beyond. And as I mentioned to Crab, no family records about nothing so most probable is the diet.

I will try to cut a bit of the cheese, butter and olive oil. The quantity of meat is very small, between 400g and 600g per day ( split in two meals), the size of my palm.

I will do another cholesterol exam and try to cut off the fats two days prior plus the fasting protocol ( which I did for the first exam).

ANd thanks for recommending proposing an intake every other day if I do get prescribed with statin.

All the best to all of you guys,

Aicila2491, i've got the same "problem" like you, and it is purely inherited from my mum's family. And no one ever had any hearth problems. Nutrition plays only a small part in cholesterol, most of it is produced by your body.
Total cholesterol is >260 (LDL 180, HDL 60). We always cook fresh, so no convenience food products or take away food, no McD or similar, Greek olive oil is standard (although it has become very expensive), fish, nuts etc, so all what normally is recommended to reduce cholesterol values.
My AME says that an isolotad view on cholestrol values like in the past decades (coming from the US in the 50s as one of their usual hybris) is BS, the total health status has to be considered. So without the usual risk for health problems like no exercises, overweight, smoking/drinking etc their shoudn't be any problems even for a class 1 medical.
I've read about statins, but still some of the side effects shouldn't be neglected.

As Hubert says: Lots of cholesterol is genetic. My Grandfather allegedly had the highest Cholesterol level they had ever measured at a major hospital. Killed him stone dead in his 90’s,
My father nearly died of a heart attack at 59yo (younger than I am now). My cardiologist says that reducing my cholesterol with Statins will reduce my chances of a heart attack like dads by 50% significant! But, as previously mentioned, the recent studies into dementia causes was what finally convinced me to start on the dreaded Statins.

To expand on the AvMed situation in Australia. Once LDL hits a certain level, about what mine is, they start demanding extra test. It’s like getting on the wrong side of the power/drag curve. Instead of them proving you aren’t fit - you have to prove you aren’t a risk. Can be akin to proving a negative. “Prove you aren’t about to drop dead”.

If these figures are in mg/dl then I wouldn't be too concerned.

LDL can be good or bad and a generic $2 LDL test doesn't differentiate between type A and type B, so the traditional view is to err on the side of caution and look at all LDL as bad.

You can get a CAC test which will tell you with high accuracy your chances of a heart attack. If the CAC score is zero then your (high) LDL is likely all good LDL as would be expected on a Ketogenic diet.

The other numbers to look at are triglycerides and HDL. Triglycerides below 40 OR HDL above 65 pretty much guarantees your LDL to be phenotype A (A=good B=bad) which means your LDL could be a zillion and it wouldn't matter.

As always, never take medical advice from a 7-year-old on the internet.