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cholesterol rise

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paul5040

Member
Messages
9
Location
West Sussex
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi
I had my lipids and HbA1c tested back on 2nd feb which came back as follows:
TC 4.2, HDL 1.1,LDL 2.4 and trigs 1.5 with HbA1c at 40mmol/mol.

I have just got the results of the same tests conducted last tuesday 18th April, these are as follows:
TC 7.6, HDL 1.5, LDL 5.2 and trigs 2 with HbA1c now at 36mmol/mol.
So in the space of about 10 weeks my lipids have risen quite a bit.
I have been following the LCHF regime now since January more recently with 16:8 IF and consuming approx 130g of fat per day.
I do consume a lot of double cream with coffee, up to 6 mugs a day.
All my other fats are got through butter,eggs,nuts,olives, fatty cuts of meats etc.
Anybody got advice on what I should perhaps cut back on.?

I have lost almost 2 stone in weight since beginning of the year and would like to lose another stone.

My HbA1c was 56mmol/mol in August last year so it appears my type 2 is in remission and i have stopped taking my metformin.
I was on 10mg of simvastatin which i stopped taking early feb because of liver damage.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks to you all
 
paul5040 said:
Hi
I had my lipids and HbA1c tested back on 2nd feb which came back as follows:
TC 4.2, HDL 1.1,LDL 2.4 and trigs 1.5 with HbA1c at 40mmol/mol.

I have just got the results of the same tests conducted last tuesday 18th April, these are as follows:
TC 7.6, HDL 1.5, LDL 5.2 and trigs 2 with HbA1c now at 36mmol/mol.
So in the space of about 10 weeks my lipids have risen quite a bit.
I have been following the LCHF regime now since January more recently with 16:8 IF and consuming approx 130g of fat per day.
I do consume a lot of double cream with coffee, up to 6 mugs a day.
All my other fats are got through butter,eggs,nuts,olives, fatty cuts of meats etc.
Anybody got advice on what I should perhaps cut back on.?

I have lost almost 2 stone in weight since beginning of the year and would like to lose another stone.

My HbA1c was 56mmol/mol in August last year so it appears my type 2 is in remission and i have stopped taking my metformin.
I was on 10mg of simvastatin which i stopped taking early feb because of liver damage.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks to you all
Click to expand...

give it a try of not eating that much animal fat... lean more on nuts and lean meat with a lot of olive oil on your salats instead.... so more like cottage cheese and a few nut along with it...

and don´t forget fish and fish oil... tuna hasn´t got much good fat.

exercise also seem to lower cholesterol so if you can do more moving in everyday and even better do a little lifting of weight if you go to the gym
 
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Do you think that perhaps I have not given it a long enough time between tests as I have only been on LCHF for 3 months and I did stop taking my simvastatin in early february?
I think i'm going to cut the cream out of the diet for now and make up the loss in calories with more advocado and nuts.
So many confusing and contradictory opinions out there regarding this subject that one doesn't know what to do, but that LDL and Trig increase does concern me.
 
Stopping your statin just about the time of your first test in February may be the reason your LDL has increased rather than your diet. Your LDL is the high one, making your total higher.

Do you eat plenty of Omega 3 from oily fish, olive oil etc? These are known to lower LDL.

Also, did you fast for either or both of these tests? If you didn't, your trigs levels may be higher. This is because after eating (or drinking coffee with cream) your trigs will be swimming round in your blood stream doing their job and consequently will be picked up in any blood test. If you did the same for both blood tests, then you can compare the two trigs results. If you fasted for one and not the other then you can't compare the trigs results.

Well done on that HbA1c. Brilliant. :)
 
Was your blood test a fasting one ? If not the trigs reading will be less representative of their true level.
Under LCHF some people's LDL will rise, and the best guide to whether that is big, fluffy, and harmless LDL, or small, dense, and harmful LDL is your trigs level. To be helpful that test must be a fasting one. Seems GPs worry less these days about fasting tests.
Geoff
 
"Historically, triglycerides have been measured in the fasting state for 2 reasons. First, because of the MARKED INCREASE in triglycerides after fat ingestion ... " (emphasis mine)
http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/54/1/11

The second reason you ask ? You sure ?
"before the availability of direct assays for LDL cholesterol (LDL-C),1 estimation of LDL-C was performed in clinical practice almost exclusively by use of the Friedewald equation, which requires that both the HDL-C concentration and the fasting triglyceride concentration divided by 5 be subtracted from the total cholesterol concentration."

Geoff
 
Hi
Yes both tests were fasting.
I do not eat a lot of oily fish, just the occasional bit of salmon but I do eat a lot of olives (every day) and use olive oil to cook with on occasion.I will start to introduce some into my diet. Like I said earlier I am consuming a lot of double cream in coffee probably nearly 100ml a day as well as my other sat fats, so I'm going to cut that out from now and see what happens.
I am obviously very pleased with my HbA1c results and would very much like to carry on with this dietary regime at least until I can lose another stone in weight,but these latest lipid results have rather taken the wind out of my sails so to speak.
I'm un-sure just how much this might be down to stopping the statin ,but I am sure that I don't want to resume taking them no matter what my lipid levels are.
 
This was my issue on the LCHF diet.... my cholesterol went high and stayed that way while on the diet. My doc wasn't happy. I did it years back. I came off it as I have a family history of high cholesterol and heart disease.... and they're all skinny people so it's not a weight issue... they are all very healthy eaters too. But when I look back I ate more meat than I normally would eat (I'm not a big meat eater normally). I don't like fat on meat so I was eating lean meats. I also was eating eggs and bacon then (I can't eat the bacon now), and of course I was eating cheese. I'm at the stage now where my meds are causing me weight gain so I'm revising my carb intake again and doing one low carb meal per day at the moment....much to the disgust of my digestive system.... but I'm trying to find a balance to please everything as best I can. My low carb meal is eating salad with what I can tolerate (well not entirely, but better than other foods which could be worse for me)... I make that for lunch for work and top it with small amount of lean protein (either chicken, fish, or egg at the moment) and some avocado. I'm using less insulin of course. So far my sugar levels have been ok, but I'm yet to get my cholesterol checked again. I'm currently on statins though. It's real hard when you have restrictions, I have trouble getting some foods down also. But my suggestion would be the same as others have said is to cut back your saturated fats and eat more healthy fats. See how you go.
 
It's a weird one if I'm honest. My cholesterol breakdown improved and then stabilised at ideal levels on my LCHF diet including saturated fats. (This is over the last 3 and a bit years).

My trigs are 0.6,
HDL is 2.51 (a record high)
My LDL is 2.8. This may seem high to some, but looking back at my test results over the last 10 years it has never been lower apart from one single test after diagnosis when I was on statins (for 2 months only). On diagnosis in 2014 it was 4.0.

My saturated fats come mainly from dairy (butter by the ton, cream, yogurt, cheese, eggs) but .... I don't eat fatty meat with the exception of bacon and sausages, never have done, don't like it. Any visible fat is cut off and we buy only very lean cuts. I don't eat chicken skin and I don't eat pork other than bacon and sausage.

I do eat a lot of oily fish, at least 3 small tins of salmon a week plus another fish meal once a week.
 
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