What Causes Elevated Cholesterol And LDL Levels?

Brief Answer:
keep your body weight close to ideal

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

the cholesterol levels can be largely attributed to individual factors. The diet plays a role but not the major one. Since your body seems to be producing a lot of cholesterol, this is what you can do to keep it at lower levels (without drugs) :
- keep your body weight as close to the ideal weight as possible. Less weight, less cholesterol.
- avoid saturated fat (particularly saturated fat) which can be found in biscuits, ice-creams, etc
- eat fibers. Fibers may help reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the intestine.
- eat more fish (contains beneficial fats that raise the HDL cholesterol) and olive oil (includes monounsaturated fat, raises HDL as well). Various oils with polyunsaturated fats are also beneficial but not much as the olive oil.
- increase your physical activity which might help to reduce your LDL and increase the protective HDL cholesterol. Of course you've got to consult your doctor first and always do mild exercises.

Finally you can try to use another statin drug (like simvastatin, etc). Pravastatin is one of the easier to tolerate but not the most efficient one.

I hope you find my comments helpful!
You can contact me again, if you'd like any clarification or further information.

Kind Regards!

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Brief Answer:
It depends

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

I don't know how high your cholesterol was but you can expect a 10% reduction in cholesterol levels with a careful diet. Omega-3 is good as a supplement anyway.
If your cholesterol is much higher than the target "healthy" levels then depending on your risk for cardiovascular events (which can be calculated if your doctor knows your blood pressure levels, HDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, sex, age, smoking status and whether you're diabetic or not) he may or may not prescribe a statin.

Kind Regards!

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