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Cholesterol results interpretation please

MrsA2

MrsA2

Expert
Messages
6,933
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
got these today. Several marked as abnormal that weren't before. What does it mean?
Serum cholesterol 7.8
Triglycerides 1.2
HDL 2.07
LDL 5.2
Ch/hdl ratio 3.77

Annoyingly my hba1c is not yet on my medical record. I hope they did it after waiting a year!
Have appt with dn on Monday
 
Hi there

You might want to put your figures through this calculator: https://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

The 2 things I look for are the triglycerides and the triglyceride / HDL ratio (seen as the key marker). Your trigs are normal according to the calculator and the trig/HDL ratio ‘ideal’ at 0.575.

Hope you get the HbA1c result!
 
Thanks @Goonergal

It is reassuring that my ratios are good, but what about the high levels? Everywhere I look says very high risk LDLs
 
Personally I’m not worried by LDL but then my trigs are low and my trigs/HDL ratio is very low (0.3). I’m also not worried about the total figure as it’s pretty meaningless on its own. As my trigs have decreased and my ratio improved, the total number and LDL have gone up.

Zoe Harcombe explains this here: https://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/we-have-got-cholesterol-completely-wrong/

You’ve recently been losing weight and that can impact on cholesterol levels - certainly did with mine. My LDL in 2017 (don’t have a diagnosis figure) was 3.8. This went up to 4.6 at the peak of my weight loss. Earlier this month it was 4.1 with ratios much improved.

In the end it comes down to your own research and what you’re comfortable with.

I expect you’re already familiar with this thread - https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/cholesterol-and-statins.156985/ - but it’s a very good starting point.
 
MrsA2 said:
Ch/hdl ratio 3.77
Click to expand...

This is the ratio that I look at.
Anything less than 4 is supposedly good.

I have run relatively high cholesterol numbers for years but my surgery agrees that this is fine as my ratios are good.

Helps that I am "normal" weight and my BP is also good.

There are arguments (@Goonergal has probably linked to them) which say that higher cholesterol is a good thing as you get older, especially for women.
 
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