“What is more important now is to follow a healthy eating pattern, most of which naturally have lower cholesterol intake levels,” Dr. Ni says. “This includes the Mediterranean diet and vegetarian and vegan diets.”
What’s More Important for Heart Health: Lowering Dietary Cholesterol or Saturated Fat?
And then you become vitamin B-12 deficient, suffer heart arrythmias, raise your homocysteine levels, leading to artery inflammation. I had heart arrythmia caused by B-12 deficiency, plus other symptoms including migraines and visual auras occurring – at the peak – up to 5x to 10x per day and lasting 20-30 minutes each.
As I learned, heart disease has been simplified into a set of talking points that are irrelevant for many. When I had a heart attack, I had no chest pain and no breathing difficulties – my only symptom was sudden onset intense fatigue. Have you ever seen that highlighted in a news article about “how to know if you are having a heart attack?”
I have never smoked, never drank alcohol, never done drugs, am not diabetic or pre-diabetic, exercised regularly and ten years of lipid panels (i.e. cholesterol was normal) – my only risk factor is being over my target weight (which I am now working on). I had been eating almost entirely vegetarian for 4 of the 5 prior years – until the B-12 deficiency was discovered (ending more than a dozen serious health problems), and a mostly Mediterranean diet the last year.
It is clear that heart disease is far more complex than these weekly articles imply. A LOT of people who did everything right have ended up with heart attacks. Indeed, for people without traditional risk factors, Vitamin B deficiency can become a significant cause of arterial inflammation leading to block arteries.
Most people who start vegetarian or vegan eating give it up before depleting their internal store of B-12. But for some of us, we will become vitamin B-12 deficient from vegetarian eating as meat is the primary source of vitamin B-12. A deficiency in B-12 (and B-6 and B-9 too) can result in excess homocysteine, which is carried by LDL-C, leading to inflammation.
I was, of course, put on statins – which resulted in my having to stop my exercise program, which is considered important to heart health and lowering triglycerides. The first statin caused significant lower body pain. I was taken off that, the pain went away, then resumed at half dose. The pain returned. Taken off that again and started on another statin. Within 5 weeks mild pain resumed. Shortly after, the pain became extreme – felt like my thigh muscles had ripped, plus bad pain in both hips, gluteal muscles, outside of lower legs, cramps in the muscles of my feet and fingers. For several weeks I experienced some of the most intense pain in my life and was barely able to walk.
3 weeks after discontinuing that statin (where I am now), the thigh muscle and lower leg pain is gone, the cramps are gone – gluteal muscle pain has subsided (but not yet 100% gone), and hips have improved (not yet fully recovered). I understand I may have experienced myopathy which is inflammation and muscle tissue damage – and it may take some weeks to recover. My health care provider will re-test my lipids in 6 weeks; I am currently taking a non-statin drug to lower LDL. Note that I already have well within normal range readings – but after a heart attack, it is desired to have it be even lower.
Afterword
Did you know that most heart attack patients have normal cholesterol levels?
From Grok AI:
Specifically, studies suggest that approximately 50% to 75% of such patients have LDL cholesterol levels within the range considered normal under current guidelines (typically LDL levels below 130 mg/dL, or even lower thresholds like 100 mg/dL or 70 mg/dL for high-risk individuals).
For heart attack patients, a commonly cited figure is around 75%, based on studies like one from UCLA, which found that nearly 75% of heart attack patients had cholesterol levels not indicative of high cardiovascular risk per national guidelines.
For stroke, data is less specific but aligns with similar trends, with estimates around 50% of patients having normal LDL cholesterol, as noted in broader cardiovascular research. These figures highlight that factors beyond cholesterol, such as inflammation, genetics, or other risk factors like smoking and hypertension, play a critical role in these events.
