Cholesterol

tom1179 said:

My cholesterol was 4.3 he wants me on medication I don't want to be on that, will that come down as I have changed my diet

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Is 4.3 correct ?

I personally wouldn't have said that was high .

While no expert, just a quick Google presents this

"mmol/L.

As a general guide, total cholesterol levels should be:

5mmol/L or less for healthy adults
4mmol/L or less for those at high risk '


And while I can imagine, simply being diagnosed as T2D, makes us 'high risk' I think we owe it to ourselves to delve a little deeper.

I would have strong reservations beginning any medications at such a level, but we each choose our own path .

And you may have other issues that do require a more rigid level.


You would have to search on here @bulkbiker posts re cholesterol.

He's posted extremely useful information regarding this .

Two points I think I've learned from reading his & others posts

Is that cholesterol level itself is more of a guess (but do check for yourself )

And even the number is misleading as it is the RATIO to other lipids that contribute to the dangers .

I'm sure there's a calculator (Hugh's calculator on the site somewhere, if not then online)
That allows anyone to input their lipid scores (triglycerides, HDL, LDL ) to establish ratios & risks .


All of this just after DX is a deep dive, (well it was for me) into facets of my body I had no clue about.

But to my mind was well worth the effort .

Good luck seeking better knowledge.

Cholesterol of 4.3 is a perfect result and absolutely normal.
Cholesterol is essential for life without it you would be dead. It's so important that your body can't afford to leave it to chance and hope you get some in your diet, so our bodies make it. If you have lots in your diet your body makes less, if you don't have enough it will make more
Why would you want to take drugs to prevent your body doing it job when your levels are fine?

I too had cholesterol medications suggested for me when I had HbA1c above the normal range with a cholesterol reading similar to yours. When I queried why they were being suggested the reason given was that as a diabetic I had a higher cardiovascular risk and so the cholesterol should ideally be less than 4.0. I did my own reading on it and concluded (for the reasons other posters have mentioned above) that I would not go on cholesterol lowering medication. With diet changes my HbA1c came down to the normal range and then it was never suggested to me again.

I was starting from a much higher HbA1c than yours. I would think with diet changes you may well see your HbA1c come down too.

@tom1179 you might find this thread on cholesterol interesting...

tom1179 said:

Thanks, have many people on here been reversed there type 2 to normal on diet alone and have been that way for years

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7 years in so far.. HbA1c better than most "normal" people no meds apart from 3 weeks of metformin hell at the start.

tom1179 said:

Thanks, have many people on here been reversed there type 2 to normal on diet alone and have been that way for years

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Almost 6 years in so far. Managed by low carb diet to reduce from , hba1c of 97 to the 30s. Would recommend you read around on this forum including the thread success stories of which there are many.
Another good place to get a broad idea of low carb is the diet doctor website their visual guides to food are a great way to get started I'll post link to the veggies visual guide but if you scroll down at bottom of that charts page is a link to other visual guides to different foods.

tom1179 said:

Thanks, have many people on here been reversed there type 2 to normal on diet alone and have been that way for years

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Loads of success stories here