Hanuveda

Possibly familial hypercholesterolaemia — an inherited condition affecting around 1 in 250 people and substantially underdiagnosed in India. It causes very high LDL from birth and premature heart disease if untreated, and it does not respond adequately to diet. You need lipid specialist assessment, and your parents, siblings and children should be screened too. This is one situation where the most valuable thing we can do is point you elsewhere quickly.

Yes, reasonably so. Triglycerides above roughly 500 mg/dL raise the risk of acute pancreatitis, and above 1000 the risk becomes substantial. This needs prompt medical treatment — typically a fibrate plus strict fat restriction and alcohol cessation — before any elective programme. Severe upper abdominal pain radiating to the back with vomiting means hospital, immediately.

Because they behave differently. Triglycerides respond strongly to alcohol, refined carbohydrate, weight and exercise. LDL responds much less to diet, because most of the cholesterol in your blood is made by your liver rather than eaten. This is precisely why statins exist and why lifestyle change alone is often insufficient for high LDL — and it is worth knowing before you set expectations.

Please talk to your physician first. Statin muscle symptoms are often manageable by changing dose, switching to a different statin, or trying a rechallenge — and studies have found that a large share of the symptom burden people attribute to statins also occurs on placebo. Stopping outright and substituting a herb with no comparable evidence trades a manageable problem for an unmanaged cardiovascular risk. Severe muscle pain with weakness and dark urine is different — that needs urgent medical assessment.

Because it is the fastest reversible cause of high triglycerides, and cutting it often produces a larger change than anything else on the plan. We ask without judgement and we need an accurate answer to advise you properly.

No. No Ayurvedic therapy has been shown to regress atherosclerotic plaque, and claims about "cleaning" or "flushing" arteries are not supported. What a structured programme can do is improve the risk factors — triglycerides, weight, blood pressure, glycaemic control — that determine whether plaque progresses.

Garlic has meta-analytic evidence for a modest reduction in total cholesterol — real but small. Red yeast rice is different: it contains monacolin K, which is chemically identical to the statin lovastatin, at unstandardised doses. So it is a statin without dose control, carrying the same muscle and liver risks. If you want a statin, take a prescribed one at a known dose. We do not use it.