You did what you were told. You took the medication. You went back for the blood tests. Your GP said the numbers were being managed. And somewhere in the back of your mind, quietly, you wondered whether the direction of travel was actually right.
That was me. Nine years on statins. Regular check-ups. GP happy enough. And then I sat down with NHS blood test results going back to 2012 and looked at the full picture: not one number, not one reading, but the whole arc. What I found stopped me cold.
My cardiovascular risk ratio had gone up 32% while I was on medication specifically designed to bring it down. Not the total cholesterol number. The ratio. The one that actually tells you how the system is doing. Up 32%. On dual medication. Over nine years.
This post is the full story: what the data showed, why the number that was being managed wasn’t the number that mattered most, and what happened in the fourteen months after I stopped the statins.
The Number on the Test Result Isn’t Always the Right Number to Watch
April 2012. My first NHS blood test on record. Total cholesterol: 7.5 mmol/L. Flagged abnormal. GP recommended we talk. Understandable. That number becomes the focus for the next eleven years.
And that’s where things quietly went wrong. Not with the intention, but with the measurement.
Gary Taubes, a science journalist who spent years pulling apart the original cholesterol research, found something interesting in the Framingham Heart Study data. The 1977 Framingham analysis showed that total cholesterol, on its own, is not a reliable predictor of cardiovascular risk in people over 50. The number with the largest impact on actual risk wasn’t the total. It was HDL, and specifically the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL. Not the cargo. The returns system.
Which changes how you read eleven years of blood test results rather significantly.
Here’s what LDL and HDL are actually doing, because the standard explanation misses the point. LDL cholesterol is essentially a delivery driver that keeps dropping parcels at the wrong address, specifically inside your arterial walls where they accumulate and cause problems. HDL is the returns driver: it picks up the misdelivered parcels and takes them back to the liver where they can be processed properly. You want fewer wrong-address deliveries and more returns. That’s the simplified version of why the ratio matters more than the total on its own. A high total with excellent returns service tells a different story to a high total with almost no returns working in your favour.
My total cholesterol was high. That was the number being managed. But my Chol/HDL ratio, the balance between the deliveries and the returns, was quietly heading in the wrong direction the entire time. 4.7 in 2012. That’s the target range. By the peak, on dual medication, it had reached 6.2. A 32% deterioration in the number that, per the Framingham data, is the stronger predictor of cardiovascular risk.
When you next get a cholesterol test, ask your GP to explain the ratio, not just the total number.
I want to be careful here, because this isn’t me saying cholesterol doesn’t matter. The LDL evidence is solid. A million participants across a hundred studies confirms that higher LDL carries higher cardiovascular risk, and saturated fat raises LDL more powerfully than almost anything else in the diet. That’s not contested. What is more nuanced is whether total cholesterol alone tells you what your actual cardiovascular risk is doing. In my case, it didn’t.
Why the Total Can Look Managed While Something Else Goes Wrong Underneath
There’s another piece to this that helps make sense of what I saw in the data.
Cholesterol is not actually the villain of heart disease. It’s the Polyfilla. When the arterial wall cracks, when the lining gets damaged by chronic inflammation, oxidised LDL, high blood sugar over years, and chronic stress, cholesterol arrives at the site of damage and fills the gap. It’s trying to help. The plaque is the Polyfilla. You don’t blame the Polyfilla for the crack in the wall. You ask what caused the crack. And the crack is caused by inflammation, not by the cholesterol level on your blood test.
That reframe is worth sitting with. Because if the crack-causing mechanism is dietary and lifestyle-driven, and the total cholesterol number is being managed chemically, you might be watching the Polyfilla while the cracks keep forming.
In my case, and I want to be honest about what I can and can’t say here, that’s what the data looked like across eleven years. The total was being addressed. The ratio was telling a different story.
This isn’t just a pattern people end up in after a diagnosis either. The process starts earlier, often in people’s thirties and forties. If you’re watching this without being on any medication at all, this is what the cardiovascular risk picture can look like in the years before a GP conversation even happens. Understanding what the ratio is doing, not just the total, matters at that stage too.
Eleven Years of Data: What the Arc Actually Looked Like
The eleven-year arc needs to come first. Without it, the numbers afterwards don’t land properly.
April 2012. Total cholesterol 7.5 mmol/L. Triglycerides 3.4. LDL 4.4. Chol/HDL ratio 4.7. That last number, 4.7, is actually in the target range.
Statins started around 2016. Atorvastatin 40mg. Then ezetimibe added, 10mg (the absorption inhibitor), making it dual medication. The logic was clear enough: cholesterol elevated, statins indicated, GP following standard protocol. I don’t have a quarrel with the decision.
December 2023. On dual medication. Total cholesterol: 8.0 mmol/L. The highest it had ever been. Nine years into medicated management. 8.0. That number stopped me. I pulled out the 2012 result, 7.5, and did the arithmetic. It had gone up 6.7% while I was on medication designed to bring it down.
Now, I want to be careful about what I’m saying. Statins do lower cholesterol in many people. The evidence for that is robust. What I can’t tell you is why my numbers behaved the way they did. What I can tell you is what the data showed.
Taking a statin without addressing the inputs that drive the underlying problem is a bit like adding coolant to an overheating engine. It helps in the short term: it prevents immediate breakdown, it buys time. But the engine is still overheating. Whatever is causing the problem, the friction, the blockage, remains. The coolant addresses the symptom. That’s not nothing. But in my case, the coolant alone didn’t appear to be enough. The ratio was still deteriorating. Ask your GP what addressing the underlying cause looks like alongside any statin therapy. The coolant is useful. The engine problem is the conversation worth having.
Boxing Day 2023. That was the personal turning point. I’d had enough of the direction of travel. I decided to change the inputs properly. Food quality. Fasting. Movement. Sleep. The whole picture, not just the medication.
February 2024: stopped statins. Stopped ezetimibe. GP-supervised. I want to be clear about that: this was not something I did on my own. I had blood tests before, during, and after. My GP knew exactly what I was doing and why. I am not suggesting anyone watching this does what I did without that conversation first. I stopped medication on my own and told my GP afterwards, with regular bloods. Not because a YouTuber told me to.
One month later: March 2024. Total cholesterol 7.0 mmol/L. Down from 8.0. Better than any single reading in the entire eleven years I’d been on medication. I went to see my GP with those results. He looked at the numbers, looked at me, and said something I genuinely didn’t expect: “Your lipids are better now than when you were medicated. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
March 2024. I’ve thought about that moment a lot since.
What Actually Seemed to Drive the Change
The improvement didn’t stop there. By April 2025, fourteen months off statins and fourteen months of changed food quality, LDL was down 32% from where it had been. From 5.6 to 3.8. HDL up 15%. The returns driver getting better. Chol/HDL ratio: 4.7–4.8. Back to where it started in 2012. After fourteen months. Without medication.
I need to say something about causation here, because I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t. Multiple things changed simultaneously. I stopped statins. I significantly reduced ultra-processed food. I started fasting regularly. I moved more. I slept better. I cannot tell you which of those variables drove the improvement, or in what proportion. The data shows the before and after. It doesn’t isolate the mechanism. I want to be honest about that.
What seemed to matter, looking at what actually changed: food quality. Sarah Berry, a nutritional scientist at King’s College London who runs research with ZOE, has found that combining oats, barley, nuts, plant proteins, and olive oil can reduce LDL by up to 30%. Her words: “you can actually reduce your cholesterol by about 30%. That’s the kind of level of reduction that you’d get from a statin.” She’s not anti-statin either. She’s saying the food inputs are more powerful than most people expect.
That matters because my LDL dropped 32% in fourteen months, but I’d also changed what I was eating. The medication isn’t the only variable that changed.
There was one other number that shifted that I wasn’t expecting. December 2023: ALT, a liver enzyme, was 69 iu/L. Elevated. November 2025: ALT 10 iu/L. Fully normal. I hadn’t targeted liver function specifically. It moved anyway. Make of that what you will.
What I’d Actually Do Differently: What to Take Into a GP Conversation
If I were starting this from scratch, knowing what the data showed, here’s what I’d have done differently and what I’d do now.
The first thing is the conversation. Not a dietary overhaul. Not stopping medication. A conversation with your GP about which number on your cholesterol panel is actually telling the story.
The Chol/HDL ratio is already on your standard NHS lipid profile. It’s there. You might not have been walked through it. Ask for it specifically. Ask what direction it’s been moving over the last few years, not just the current reading, but the trend. That question takes about thirty seconds and costs nothing.
The second thing: food quality before anything else. The foods Sarah Berry’s research points at, oats, barley, beans, nuts, and olive oil, aren’t an extreme intervention. They’re the direction of eating quality. Her data suggests measurable impact within ten days of consistent dietary change. That’s a short enough window to actually test.
The longer timeline expectation is honest: my ratio took fourteen months to return to its 2012 baseline. Not thirty days. Fourteen months. The one-month signal was encouraging. The meaningful result took over a year. Anyone suggesting cholesterol markers shift dramatically in a short window: I’d look at that claim carefully.
Tracking: at your next scheduled blood test, ask your GP to highlight the Chol/HDL ratio alongside the total. If you have previous results, ask to see the ratio trend over time. Most GP practices can pull those numbers. The comparison, the trend rather than just the current reading, is where the story lives.
And the important bit: if you are on statin medication, please do not stop or change it without a GP conversation first. I stopped mine on my own initiative, with regular blood tests before and after. Statins reduce cardiovascular events in people with established cardiovascular disease. That evidence is solid and it’s not what this post is challenging. What this post is showing is my specific data going back to 2012set and what the ratio looked like across that period.
If your cholesterol results have been a source of worry, and I know from the questions I get asked that they are for a lot of people, bring the ratio number into the conversation with your GP. Not to challenge the prescription, but to understand what the trend is actually showing.
I’ll leave that with you.
Key Takeaways
- The ratio matters more than the total: Chol/HDL ratio is the cardiovascular risk number worth tracking. It’s on your standard NHS lipid profile and it tells a more complete story than total cholesterol alone
- Total cholesterol can look stable while something else drifts: Eleven years of managed total cholesterol, 32% deterioration in the ratio across the same period. The two numbers can move in different directions
- Cholesterol is the Polyfilla, not the crack: The arterial damage comes from inflammation, oxidised LDL, and chronic blood sugar problems. Cholesterol fills the gap, it doesn’t make it.
- Food quality appears to be a powerful input: Sarah Berry’s research suggests the portfolio approach can achieve statin-level LDL reduction, around 30%, through dietary change alone
- The timeline is fourteen months, not thirty days: The one-month improvement was real. The ratio returning to baseline took over a year. Set the expectation honestly.
- This is N=1 data: One person, one record, one GP, multiple variables changing simultaneously. Draw your own conclusions.
Ready to Start Your Own Rhythm Reset?
If this raised questions about your own blood test results and you want to understand how metabolic health connects to cardiovascular risk, the 14-Day Rhythm Reset Guide is the starting point. It covers the fundamentals of eating windows, food quality, and how to approach the changes that seem to have the most consistent impact on these kinds of markers.
👉 Get the 14-Day Rhythm Reset Guide (free): https://waymorethanweightloss.com/14-day-rhythm-reset-guide
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⚠️ Important: Everything in this post is educational content only, not medical advice. I am not a doctor, and this is not a recommendation to stop, change, or question your medication. If you’re on statins or any other cardiovascular medication, please speak to your GP before making any changes. I stopped my own medications on my own initiative and told my GP afterwards, with NHS bloods throughout. Speak to your GP before changing your fasting pattern, diet, or medication. If you’re on diabetes or blood pressure medication alongside statins, fasting and dietary changes can affect how those medications work. Your GP needs to know what you’re doing.
Questions? Email hello@waymorethanweightloss.com
© 2026 Way More Than Weight Loss. All Rights Reserved.
👉 Get the 14-Day Rhythm Reset Guide (free)
💪 Want ongoing support? Join Rhythm Club for £30/month (includes FREE app access, community, and weekly accountability calls)
⚠️ Important: This is educational content based on evidence and personal experience. It is not medical advice. Speak to your GP before making changes to your fasting pattern, diet, or medication.
Questions? Email hello@waymorethanweightloss.com
© 2025 Way More Than Weight Loss. All Rights Reserved.
