Help- Are These Cholesterol Results High?

Bluetit1802 · Jun 8, 2018

Dexterdobe said:
I have attached all the cholesterol results. It was not a fasting test, my blood was taken about 90 minutes after my midday meal.

Whether your trigs were shown or not, they will be included in the Non-HDL amount, which is 4. So your trigs and LDL (which are the non-HDL elements), add up to a total of 4. The standard is up to 4, so you just made it. Because you had recently eaten, your trigs will have been raised and floating about in your blood stream doing their job. Had you been fasting, your trigs would have been a lot lower, and therefore your Non-HDL would have been lower.

Dexterdobe said:
A reduction > 40% from baseline
non-HDL-cholesterol should be achieved.

Your nurse/doctor has been advised by the lab to lower your non-HDL by at least 40% with statins. (a one-size fits all thing) but you don't need to reduce yours, and would have even less need had you fasted.

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
Whether your trigs were shown or not, they will be included in the Non-HDL amount, which is 4. So your trigs and LDL (which are the non-HDL elements), add up to a total of 4. The standard is up to 4, so you just made it. Because you had recently eaten, your trigs will have been raised and floating about in your blood stream doing their job. Had you been fasting, your trigs would have been a lot lower, and therefore your Non-HDL would have been lower.

Your nurse/doctor has been advised by the lab to lower your non-HDL by at least 40% with statins. (a one-size fits all thing) but you don't need to reduce yours, and would have even less need had you fasted.

Thanks for this. I've now got access to earlier test results. they don't show trigs or LDL, but all the other numbers are only slightly lower than they are now, so the LCHF diet hasn't made a material difference. I'm minded to tell the DN that I don't want statins, but that I will look to eat a bit less bad fat (IK don't eat much as it is, but hey ho).

Bluetit1802 · Jun 8, 2018

Dexterdobe said:
Thanks for this. I've now got access to earlier test results. they don't show trigs or LDL, but all the other numbers are only slightly lower than they are now, so the LCHF diet hasn't made a material difference. I'm minded to tell the DN that I don't want statins, but that I will look to eat a bit less bad fat (IK don't eat much as it is, but hey ho).

Next time your test is due, make sure you ask for a full lipid panel, and make sure you fast for it.
Was the HDL lower on previous tests? If so, that is excellent news! The higher the HDL the better.
Lowering saturated fat is up to you, but you may not need to.

Dark Horse · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
Whether your trigs were shown or not, they will be included in the Non-HDL amount, which is 4. So your trigs and LDL (which are the non-HDL elements), add up to a total of 4. The standard is up to 4, so you just made it. Because you had recently eaten, your trigs will have been raised and floating about in your blood stream doing their job. Had you been fasting, your trigs would have been a lot lower, and therefore your Non-HDL would have been lower.

Your nurse/doctor has been advised by the lab to lower your non-HDL by at least 40% with statins. (a one-size fits all thing) but you don't need to reduce yours, and would have even less need had you fasted.

Actually, the lab are not advising statins. What they are saying is, 'just because this person has a higher than 'normal' cholesterol, it doesn't mean that you should automatically put them on statins'. They are reminding the GP that they need to look at the risk calculator before considering prescribing.

Bluetit1802 · Jun 8, 2018

Dark Horse said:
Actually, the lab are not advising statins. What they are saying is, 'just because this person has a higher than 'normal' cholesterol, it doesn't mean that you should automatically put them on statins'. They are reminding the GP that they need to look at the risk calculator before considering prescribing.

Yes, you are quite right. Thank you for correcting my post.

AtkinsMo · Jun 8, 2018

If by ‘bad fats’ you mean that fats that standard medicine regards as ‘bad fats’, you might be doing just the wrong thing. The real ‘bad fats’ are Vegetable oils, Omega 6 in particular, fats, margarine etc and in particular Vegetable oils re-heated for deep frying, which creates trans-fats.

The actual ‘healthy’ fats that don’t cause inflammation are natural, butter, olive oil, animal fats, lard.

As with many things, the dietary advice that we’ve all been given is simply wrong.

Dark Horse · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
Yes, you are quite right. Thank you for correcting my post.

No problem - these messages aren't always clear!

Guzzler · Jun 8, 2018

Prem51 said:
Your cholesterol/HDL level of 3.5 is good. NICE guidelines for people with diabetes is less than 5.
Your serum cholesterol of 1.55 is good too, NICE recommends at least 1.0 (for men).

If you can get your triglycerides and LDL figures, you can calculate your ratios on here:
http://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

LDL is pretty meaningless unless they test the ranges, which they don't. For now, it is HDL / Trigs ratio that is the best indicator but for some reason the NHS have switched to TC to non HDL as the indicator.

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
Yes, you are quite right. Thank you for correcting my post.

Thanks guys. It's good to know that you agree

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

AtkinsMo said:
If by ‘bad fats’ you mean that fats that standard medicine regards as ‘bad fats’, you might be doing just the wrong thing. The real ‘bad fats’ are Vegetable oils, Omega 6 in particular, fats, margarine etc and in particular Vegetable oils re-heated for deep frying, which creates trans-fats.

The actual ‘healthy’ fats that don’t cause inflammation are natural, butter, olive oil, animal fats, lard.

As with many things, the dietary advice that we’ve all been given is simply wrong.

How long before they tell us that eating green veg is dangerous. Seriously, why is the NHS always years behind medical developments?

AtkinsMo · Jun 8, 2018

Well, I hope they don’t. Just had the most delightful supper, half an onion, sliced, fried in butter with 2 cloves garlic and 6 sliced mushrooms. Steamed tender stem broccoli and asparagus spears, served with a knob of butter, then an Aldi steak (have to say their steaks are very good) seared on a very high heat for maybe 90 seconds each side, so served rare, with all the drippings from the pans. Absolutely gorgeous. (that was shared by two people, by the way)! How we ever managed to eat a steak each I’ll never know, so, I really hope ‘THEY’ don’t decide green veg are not good for us!

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
Also no LDL reading? Not that it matters that much, but you do need the triglycerides.

From the figures you have quoted your cholesterol is fine.

This is what your nurse is reading on the lab report:

COMMENT Lipid modification in NICE CG181 is based on CVD risk rather
than solely on cholesterol results. Statins are recommended for
patients with cardiovascular disease, and in those with CVD risk
> or = to 10% at 10 years. A reduction > 40% from baseline
non-HDL-cholesterol should be achieved.

Irrespective of what your cholesterol is doing, she has homed in on the CVD risk of more than 10% on the Q-Risk calculation.

https://qrisk.org/three/

Anyone that scores more than 10% is offered statins. Sadly, this will include most diabetics.

It is a one size fits all calculator, and complete rubbish. You will see how rubbish it is if you play around with it and try different scenarios.

Thanks for this Bluetit. It's very interesting. I have played around with the scenarios and as you say, it's pretty rubbish. For example, my HBA1c is in the normal range, but if I show that I am diabetic my risk rises from 10.1 to 19.3. I appreciate that diabetes raises the risk, but surely a well-controlled diabetic must have a lower risk than an uncontrolled diabetic. It's a tool, but the information it gives has to be treated with caution.

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

AtkinsMo said:
Well, I hope they don’t. Just had the most delightful supper, half an onion, sliced, fried in butter with 2 cloves garlic and 6 sliced mushrooms. Steamed tender stem broccoli and asparagus spears, served with a knob of butter, then an Aldi steak (have to say their steaks are very good) seared on a very high heat for maybe 90 seconds each side, so served rare, with all the drippings from the pans. Absolutely gorgeous. (that was shared by two people, by the way)! How we ever managed to eat a steak each I’ll never know, so, I really hope ‘THEY’ don’t decide green veg are not good for us!

You are clearly a candidate for an early trip to the grave

. My diabetes nurse would spank you raw. All that butter and red meat! Don't you know that saturated fats are really bad for us? I think I might try it myself this weekend.

Bluetit1802 · Jun 8, 2018

Dexterdobe said:
Thanks for this Bluetit. It's very interesting. I have played around with the scenarios and as you say, it's pretty rubbish. For example, my HBA1c is in the normal range, but if I show that I am diabetic my risk rises from 10.1 to 19.3. I appreciate that diabetes raises the risk, but surely a well-controlled diabetic must have a lower risk than an uncontrolled diabetic. It's a tool, but the information it gives has to be treated with caution.

I put in "no diabetes" and "moderate smoker". My risk was a lot less than it was the other way round. So they count diabetes as more risky than smoking. The risk also increases every time you have a birthday, which none of us can avoid! It also changes if you change the post code. Now my GP has coded me as diabetes resolved, my risk has almost halved. I must make sure they take account of that next time they do one for me.

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

Rachox said:
According to this page, your total cholesterol/HDL ratio is good:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/cholesterol-to-hdl-ratio-calculator.html
I agree with crocodile no triglyceride reading?

Yes, I see what you mean Rachox. I can see I'm going to have an interesting meeting with my DN next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Dexterdobe · Jun 8, 2018

Bluetit1802 said:
I put in "no diabetes" and "moderate smoker". My risk was a lot less than it was the other way round. So they count diabetes as more risky than smoking. The risk also increases every time you have a birthday, which none of us can avoid! It also changes if you change the post code. Now my GP has coded me as diabetes resolved, my risk has almost halved. I must make sure they take account of that next time they do one for me.

I'm intrigued. What did you have to do to get coded as 'Diabetes Resolved'?

Bluetit1802 · Jun 9, 2018

Dexterdobe said:
I'm intrigued. What did you have to do to get coded as 'Diabetes Resolved'?

Maintain an HbA1c of under 48 for an unspecified length of time! Unspecified because the GP has only recently coded me this way, but has backdated it 4 years to when I had my first HbA1c under 48. (No meds)

lindisfel · Jun 12, 2018

It's because most people (perhaps not athletes) with the exception of low carb high good fats, have low HDL and high Trigs! And the diabetics not on our feeding regime are heading for a heart attack or stroke and statins can help get LDL down and thin blood avoiding some of the problems of hyperinsulinemia.

Better to cut carbs and avoid hyperinsulinemia and high blood glucose and statins that cause many to have muscles pains.

It a NICE one size fits all policy!
D.

Guzzler said:
LDL is pretty meaningless unless they test the ranges, which they don't. For now, it is HDL / Trigs ratio that is the best indicator but for some reason the NHS have switched to TC to non HDL as the indicator.

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