Quite a long post so please bear with me...
GOOD question MM. I have been T2 for 15 years. Last week, I suffered a minor-stroke BUT thankfully no permanent damage. My blood tests revealed my Total ChoL at 10.4 with LDL at 8.0.
Since starting LCHF, I monitor my blood every 2 months and had noticed that both LDL/total ChoL were steadily rising. However, having done extensive reading & watched Volek, Sikaris et al, I was prepared to persist as LCHF has brought my sugars down to non-diabetic levels & I have lost 65 lbs.
My issue is that my HDL levels were also slowly declining & Triglycerides were slowly climbing. In fact, both HDL & TG were much better prior to LCHF. Doctors have started me on statins, which I agreed to, NOT for the cholesterol BUT to stabilize further possible plaque ruptures that may lead to another stroke.
Conventional wisdom is that diet contributes less than 20% to your blood cholesterol levels. During LCHF, I consume between 3-6 eggs & around 5 tablespoons of butter per day so that could be part of what is causing the rise. Consequently, I have reduced eggs & butter drastically whilst introducing Olive Oil/avocados into my diet.
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/06/i-lost-weight-and-my-cholesterol-went-up/
This link was posted on the Forum recently and it is something I also read in Phinney/Volek's book. The theory is that substantial weight loss over a short period of time releases a considerable amount of ChoL & Fat into the bloodstream leading to higher levels and in the short term causes HDL to drop whilst struggling to deal with the excess Chol/Fat lipoproteins/particles.
My point is, for me a morbidly obese person with long term diabetes and strong family history of that & heart disease with some hypertension thrown in for good measure, it can be overwhelming to deal with all these problems at once. The thing is my secondary Cardiologist whom I have known for about 20 years is astounded by the reduction in weight & blood sugar control (& ironically a non-LCHF believer) is actually encouraging me to stick with it and that is key. For my part, I am dealing with the ChoL as a secondary issue to be managed by diet & statins IF necessary.
I would encourage, if possible, for you to have scans; heart and possibly carotid (neck) to identify possible plaque build-up which can nowadays be arrested and possibly even reversed with good diet/medication.
Hope that helps.
All The Best,
Mo