‘I was lying in bed awake considering my mortality’ says the Harrogate man behind Parkrun after hew as diagnoised wtih ‘dangerous’ cholesterol

Tom, 46, from Harrogate is the Chief Operating Officer of Parkrun, which organises free running events for millions of people around the world.

But his GP told him that his cholesterol level was far too high at 8.5 (above six is considered to be high risk) and that he should consider starting on statins to reduce his risk of a heart attack. Statins, which need to be taken for life, help to reduce cholesterol levels.

Tom, who has two children with his wife, Helen, has a family history of high cholesterol, although no-one in his family had heart disease.

“I was expecting my GP appointment to be a straightforward well man check-up,” explains Tom.

“I found endurance sport in my late twenties and had run dozens of marathons, several iron-distance triathlons.”

He run a weekly Marathon Talk podcast and with his partner Martin Yelling, ran The Comrades Marathon, the world’s largest and oldest ultra-marathon race with a distance of 90km which takes place every year in South Africa.

“I was fit and active, so I wasn’t expecting any health issues,” he recalls.

“I’ve always had high cholesterol – it runs in my family – but I don’t prescribe to the idea of that necessarily being a bad thing. Nevertheless, my GP suggested that taking statins could be a good idea to both lower my cholesterol and protect against a heart disease. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“I initially chose to monitor my health, but six months later I started getting heart palpitations for the first time. The flutters in my heart were particularly disconcerting at night when I was lying awake in bed, and considering my mortality.”

He was then introduced to Dr Scott Murray, former president of the British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (BACPR) and founder of Venturi Cardiology in Warrington, the North West’s first independent dedicated healthy heart clinic, which opens this month.

“Scott is a rare combination of being an incredibly credible individual and open-minded to what is a more patient-centric approach to health. He treats his patients as individuals and champions preventative cardiology.” says Tom.

“He talked through my family history of high cholesterol, asked about my heart flutters and then did a range of different tests including an electrocardiogram (ECG) which checks the heart’s rhythm and electrical activity and an echocardiogram (echo) which checks the pumping function and valves of the heart.

“I also had a calcium score and CT coronary angiogram to check for the presence of heart artery disease.”

The calcium score is a 10-minute £150 test which uses a CT scanning machine to take multiple X-ray images of the heart blood vessels to measure the level of calcium build-up.

A score of zero indicates no calcium build-up while a score of over 400 suggests major furring of the arteries and a high risk of developing a future heart attack.

The test has been available for 20 years. but is not routinely used to screen NHS patients for heart disease.

“Dr Murray explained to me that as heart disease progresses, the level of calcium in the vessel walls increases, so it can be an excellent indicator as to whether you have the disease or not.

“He also told me that my tests showed that I had zero coronary calcium, putting my risk of heart disease at extremely low, which was hugely reassuring. I didn’t need to go on statins.”

So, what had caused his heart flutters?

“It could have been tiredness, work stress, a virus or just one of those things. It coincided with a time when I wasn’t sleeping well, was working very hard, my diet wasn’t great and I had very young children.

“They lasted a few months, faded away and I haven’t had any more since.

“Although my cholesterol is high, Dr Murray said that it was likely my cholesterol was helping me fuel my tissues, given my diet and exercise regime, rather than carrying excess cholesterol in dangerous lipoproteins that can cause heart disease.

“ It seems to me to be much more complicated than just “good or bad”, and if in doubt give a statin pill.”

Tom’s father Brian Williams, is a retired professor of epidemiology for the World Health Organisation in Geneva and also has very high cholesterol.

He ran an ultra-marathon when he was 74 and his arteries were checked in the past and are healthy.

“There’s something about being given a clean bill of health which makes you think don’t mess it up. Today I prioritise eating and sleeping better and exercising well. I concentrate less on marathons and more on my frequent 5km runs,” says Tom.

“I may not be ‘super-fit’ now, but I believe that at 46 year old I’m the healthiest I have been. The tests and diagnostics have backed that up. It’s very reassuring.”

Dr Scott Murray, a consultant preventative cardiologist and a founder of the independent Venturi Cardiology heart clinic in Warrington, said: “Tom appeared to be at a high risk of heart disease based on his cholesterol test, but the calcium score test showed he was actually at very low risk and didn’t need statins.

“Calcium score tests are a way of looking ‘under the hood’ to provide a much more personalised approach to a patient’s risk of heart disease.”