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Good sound information about cholesterol needed

M

mariavontrapp

Well-Known Member
Messages
293
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Just had results of a blood test for cholesterol levels and the doctor started talking about my fatty acid levels being very high (12). Also my total cholesterol is 7.8.
The doctor seemed totally unable to discuss what I should do and had no understanding of how I was handling my diabetes by diet only. Her only advice was eat a "balanced diet" and don't smoke.
I think I should have posted this in the "rant" section, but honestly, how are we supposed to figure all this out when the doctors know nothing about it?
I would really appreciate any information or links that point to good up-to-date information on the risks of high cholesterol and how to lower it without the use of statins.
Thanks
 
It seem your cholesterol level has increased. What you should do is reduce your fat intake. Don't follow exactly LCHF. You need to adjust to suit your body. For doctors they follow exactly what they have learned in medical text books. They won't try something not yet proven in medical research.
 
mariavontrapp said:
Just had results of a blood test for cholesterol levels and the doctor started talking about my fatty acid levels being very high (12). Also my total cholesterol is 7.8.
The doctor seemed totally unable to discuss what I should do and had no understanding of how I was handling my diabetes by diet only. Her only advice was eat a "balanced diet" and don't smoke.
I think I should have posted this in the "rant" section, but honestly, how are we supposed to figure all this out when the doctors know nothing about it?
I would really appreciate any information or links that point to good up-to-date information on the risks of high cholesterol and how to lower it without the use of statins.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Hi there, I`m afraid it is going to be a case of read the available research, evaluate and then make up your own mind who you are comfortable with following as I for one am not convinced that anyone really has the definitive answers. Personally I lean towards Dr Malcolm Kendrick and his views in "the great cholesterol con" but you, of course, may totally disagree, if you have a kindle the book is available for 99p so at least worth a look. Whomever you choose to follow I wish you the very best of luck:).
 
Hi Maria,

There's a lot of reading to do to sort out the issue of cholesterol, but it's worth doing. It has skewed medical approaches to diabetes and heart disease for 40 years, because it has become a sacred cow. The subject is usually approached completely wrong, in my view.

To get the big picture without too much detail, try the Australian lipid specialist Ken Sikaris on Youtube, perhaps this one.

Then for a bit more depth, the Malcolm Kendrick book mentioned above, The Great Cholesterol Con, is good. It's a contentious subject, but he is a reliable critical voice. He's a British general practitioner who has a research specialism in heart disease. Don't be put off by his jokes, which I find quite annoying: his stuff is good and reliable.

Then once you really want to get into the ultimate detail, go to the Peter Attia blog and work through his nine posts on cholesterol, or else just read the last one which recaps the others. Attia is a surgeon who with Gary Taubes founded the Nutrition Science Initiative.

In outline, when you go low carb, for the first nine months or so your cholesterol will rise. This happens when you go ketotic or when you lose a lot of weight. It doesn't last. Your HDL will also rise, and your trigs will fall - both outcomes that you *very* much want. Your LDL, the cholesterol that spooks people, will initially rise, as above, but will then go down a lot.

OTOH, some people on low carb find that their LDL stays high (as well as their HDL and trigs staying excellently high and low, respectively). If the numbers aren't dramatic, sometimes people choose to stick with low carb and assume, as they could verify if they went to the trouble of having a private test, that this is the benign pattern of relatively large LDL particles (rather than the nasty small oxidised sort). It usually is. But people who really want to know can have an Apolipoprotein-B test in the UK, which will tell them how high their levels of LDL particles is, which is the true factor that identifies risk of heart-disease or not. The number of particles (LDL-P) is more informative than the overall LDL-C number, which anyway is usually only a guess.

For those (about a quarter) who turn out to have consistently high LDL scores and want to know what to do about it, I recommend these two sources:

Peter Attia, but start at the paragraph beginning 'Contrary to what some of you might think' ...

and Franziska Spritzler at Low Carb Dietitian .

Thomas Dayspring is also brilliant on this subject. In essence, if it bothers you, switching from sat to monounsat fats can bring the LDL-P score down.

Oof!
 
Lucy, thank you so much for taking the time to write this thorough reply. I really appreciate it and will be looking at all the links.
 
You're most welcome. Courage in working it all through to your satisfaction.
 
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