Recent Content by HairySmurf

Yes the liver will and must make cholesterol in order to 'manufacture' bile acids which is important for how our digestive system works. Every cell in the body can and does manufacture its own cholesterol but the liver has a very high demand for it in order to create bile acids. Manufacturing...

No the plant sterols in Benecol and similar won't significantly effect your HDL levels. Plant sterols work by 'jamming' the pathways through which cholesterol is absorbed from the intestine. Not exactly, but as the mechanism that absorbs cholesterol in the gut can't distinguish between plant...

A bad sensor can give readings that are very far off the mark though it would be very unusual for several sensors to be that inaccurate. If the sensor is more than around 15 to 20% away from a finger-prick test, where the test is done around 10 minutes before comparing to the Libre and levels...

The short answer is yes, probably. After losing that much weight and seeing results that good you will probably stay below the diabetic HbA1c range until you reach quite an old age, so long as you don't put on weight, though how much carbs you eat probably shouldn't be ignored entirely. It now...

I also use 3.9 to 8 mmol/L as my target range. There's very little information out there on what constitutes normal, 100% healthy blood glucose levels as large-scale studies using CGMs in non-diabetics have not been completed yet. The only studies I know of were small-scale and did not follow...

So far (after four sensors) the only lows I've noticed were due to alcohol or immediately after exercise. I have noticed that moderate exercise done toward the 'end of the curve' can push my BG levels down very rapidly. I'd get home and within minutes they'd pop back up quickly. Apart from...

There is no app that I know of which combines Libre 2 CGM, Fitbit and MyFitnessPal data all in one place. The most sophisticated Android app is xDrip+ which can be used with a server called Nightscout which provides data analysis. At one time that did support Fitbit in a basic way but I'm no...

Hi there, I see from your previous posts that you were diagnosed prediabetic in March, began a low-carb diet and presumably have been losing weight since? How much weight have you lost in total since then? Do you test your fasting blood glucose levels - first thing in the morning? If so, did...

Understood. It's perhaps worth having a look at the GMI (Glucose Management Indicator) figure on the blood glucose report from the LibreView site also, for comparing with HbA1c. If you have no unusual blood conditions that can make the HbA1c blood test inaccurate for you, and if the Libre...

Not Type 1 I'm afraid though have been doing some learning in this area as I'm also interested in the accuracy of CGMs. 'Accurate' is a relative term in this context. There are basic standards for the accuracy of finger-prick meters and CGMs but the range of values that is considered...

This is a very good paper, many thanks Kenny. The gist is that arbitrary population-wide recommendations to lower saturated fat intake as a broad category of fats is unfounded. Can't argue with that. I found this text in that paper notable: "Although there was also a positive relation of...

One of the papers above proves the link which you claim doesn't exist. You are correct in what an LDL particle is and saturated fat has nothing to do with how that works. Saturated fat doesn't influence LDL particles, it influences the receptors in the liver that clear LDL particles from the...

I'm not sure I follow. From the four studies linked above: 1: "We conducted a multicenter, randomized, crossover-design trial of the effects of reducing dietary SFA on plasma lipids and lipoproteins in 103 healthy adults 22 to 67 years old. There were 46 men and 57 women, of whom 26 were...

The latest article from Prof Roy Taylor is now available on The Lancet site - Link. Reading the full text is free but requires registering an account with The Lancet. In the paper Taylor has a table listing all the suspected causes of Type 2 that have been suggested in recent years and his...

Evidence that dietary saturated fat has a connection to LDL - study from 1998 - Link. This was a study that built on research carried out over the previous two decades. This study compared three diet plans - the average American diet (AAD), a diet titled 'Step 1' and a diet titled 'low-SFA'...