Did my blood test today. Could somebody please explain about cholesterol and triglycerides?

[phdiabetic]

So HbA1c was 5.4%=36, bit of an increase from last time as I have really been struggling to get good numbers at uni, but it's ok, I feared it would be worse so I'm happy.

Anyway non-fasting lipids were as follows:
Cholesterol 3.59
Triglycerides 2.14
HDL 1.33
Chol/HDL ratio 2.7
LDL 1.3
Non HDLC 2.26

I was really pleased that my total cholesterol came down from >4, and my non HDLC came down from a peak at 2.89. My doctor said all my results were good especially non HDLC. But sometimes people on the forum here say it's good to have high cholesterol and they don't want to take tablets for it, so what is the effect of having high cholesterol? Is it good that I got mine down?

Also my triglycerides were high, my doctor said it's ok because it was a non-fasting test and I would have gotten lower if I was fasting, but why was my number high? I tried really hard to exercise so I expected it to be better? My BMI is great (155cm, about 50kg) so it's not that.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rachox]

Calling @bulkbiker and @Bluetit1802 , the oracles when it comes to all things lipids

 

[bulkbiker]

Without knowing your age and sex it's extremely hard to say anything about your results.
If you hadn't fasted for the test then the results are pretty meaningless anyway.
Triglycerides are influenced by what you eat and the trig/ HDL ratio is considered important when looking at the likelihood of Cardio Vascular Disease. But only when the trig number is from a fasted test.
Sorry not to be of more help.

 

[phdiabetic]

Without knowing your age and sex it's extremely hard to say anything about your results.
If you hadn't fasted for the test then the results are pretty meaningless anyway.
Triglycerides are influenced by what you eat and the trig/ HDL ratio is considered important when looking at the likelihood of Cardio Vascular Disease. But only when the trig number is from a fasted test.
Sorry not to be of more help.

Thanks! I'm 20 yrs old and female. I didn't fast because I have a lot of trouble with that as a T1 due to hypos so my doctors say I don't have to. She also said that stress can raise your cholesterol. What is the trig/HDL ratio supposed to be for healthy people?

 

[bulkbiker]

In UK measurements below 0.87 but as I said above your triglyceride figure will have been influenced by whatever you ate before the blood test so please don't infer anything from your levels from this test.

 

[Bluetit1802]

Those figures look remarkably good to me.

The standard for a non-fasting test for triglycerides is 0 to 2.3.

Fasting/non-fasting only affects the triglycerides, not the other bits. Much depends on how much fat you ate. The trigs are there to deal with dietary fat during digestion, so if you had something fatty in the period leading up to the test the trigs will have been swimming about in your blood stream doing their job.

 

[phdiabetic]

Those figures look remarkably good to me.

The standard for a non-fasting test for triglycerides is 0 to 2.3.

Fasting/non-fasting only affects the triglycerides, not the other bits. Much depends on how much fat you ate. The trigs are there to deal with dietary fat during digestion, so if you had something fatty in the period leading up to the test the trigs will have been swimming about in your blood stream doing their job.

Thanks! I had eaten some fatty stuff, a small packet of chips and the peanut butter on my weetabix, so that might explain things.

 

[Bluetit1802]

Thanks! I had eaten some fatty stuff, a small packet of chips and the peanut butter on my weetabix, so that might explain things.

Even so, your trigs for non-fasting were inside the standard range. Next time, as you can't fast easily, only eat something light with no fat. If there is such a thing! But all I can say is well done!