HDL LEVELS

HDL, is the 'good' cholesterol,
Your statin plus diet has lowered the overall cholesterol to well under target levels, which is good and its good that the HDL has stayed the same. 'However it's still a bit on the lowside. The UK site lab tests online says that
A desirable level of HDL is greater than 1.0 mmol/L for men and greater than 1.2mmol/L for women A good level of HDL is 1.5 mmol/L or more and is associated with a less than average risk of heart disease.
One of the best ways to raise HDL after losing weight is aerobic exercise.
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I did find a portion plate recently on the main part of this site. Click the logo at the top of the page and then do a search for it.

Hi Chrissie,
Unfortunately statins only have a small impact on your HDL and Trigs, the LDL benefits most. Do you know what your LDL and Trigs numbers were? Your HDL does look rather low, I'm not on medication and my HDL is 1.62.

Cheers
Graham

My HDL went up considerably after 3 months of low carbing, without checking I think from 1.1 to 1.7, I didn't eat a lot of saturated fat but I had upped my consumption of healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil, walnuts, brazil nuts and almonds considerably. And also I eat oily fish about 3 times a week and the days I don't I eat a morepa fish oil tablet.
After seeing these results my husband reduced his carbs a little and upped his healthy fats, his hdl increased too.
I have always exercised and had a glass of red wine most nights!

Graham is right.
Statins won't have an impact on either your HDL or your triglycerides, only your LDL.
There is something available however which needs no prescription and yet it has a significant impact on your HDL (raising it) and triglycerides (lowering them). Doctor's tend not to prescribe it because it can't be made as a pill or a potion.
You guessed it, it's a low carbohydrate diet.

All the best,

fergus

Hi Chrissie,
With regard to your results, I would just phone the surgery and ask for a copy, this is what I do and the only time they say no is if there is a problem the gp wants to discuss with me first, I still get them afterwards. My mum's dsn was a bit like yours, she just asked the reception with no problem.
Enjoy your cruise!
Jo

chrissieworne said:

Hi

My last tests seemed much better but I am confused about "hdl?" At diagnosis in May this yr my bp was 150/96, in Sept it's 145/87 so looks like i will have to have meds. In May my hbac1 was 9, in Sept its 7.2. In May my cholesterol was 5 and the hdl was 0.79, in Sept (after 3 months on statin)my chol had gone down to 3.2 nd my hdl is same. Is this good or bad? nurse non-committal as per norm.

Weight has stopped coming off, any ideas where i can buy a portion plate? :roll:

Advice please?

Cheers Chrissie.

Click to expand...

Hi Chrissie,

Over the years I've realised a massive change in mt total cholesterol down from 7.7 on diagnosis nearly nine years to 3.1 recently. I've achieved tht by taking Simvastatin and changing my diet. Despite that my HDL changes very little - it's always between 1.0 and 1.3 which is OK but a bit on the low side. I'm always reading that the best way to change it is by exerciseand I do very little most days.

Your improvement on HbA1c is a good start but I suggest that you work at getting it lower - less than 6% if you can do it. Eating less carbohydrate should help you to achieve that. Through testing, I found that cereal and/or toast for breakfast was my main problem.

Good luck with you health improvement plan.

Best Wishes - John

chrissieworne said:

Thanks all

John, I wish i had your bp!!! amazing how do you get on with the ramiril? a few yrs ago i was on adalat for about 2 yrs until i lost lots of weight and my bp dropped like a brick, since then i didn't have any bp probs, however, in last yr it has crept up and if the nurse isn't happy with it next month she said i will have to go on rampiril. I have looked it up on the net and it sounds quite hard to tolerate where with the adalat i was absolutely fine, why the change i wonder? cost? :?:

Regards Chrissie

Click to expand...

Hi Chrissie,

It might be hard to believe but my BP was 164/109 at diagnosis nine years ago. The improvement has been gradual over the years. I always put down most of the improvement to cutting back on alcohol - I used to be quite a big drinker and these days I drink very little (less than 10 units a week and often less than that). In addition, I have taken medication since diagnosis and I'm certain that has helped too. More recently over the last year, I have lost about 30 kgs in weight and that has led to another improvement. If anything it's getting a bit low - it's lower than that of my always-active sports-mad 13-year-old grandson. Very recently, that has led my GP starting to cut back my medication.

I've never noted any side effects from taking any of my medications - other than the usual problems with metformin in the early stages. Rampiril hasn't caused me any problems that I'm aware of.

Best Wishes - John