Help with cholesterol please

Saturated fats push mine up.

I seem to remember a couple of people on here who have recently had cholesterol tests and they have come back much higher than before. I wonder if there is a problem with the testing, or they have started to do it differently?

We both those results from fasting blood tests? or both from non-fasting? if one was fasting, and one wasnt, that can make a difference.

My cholesterol went from 5.5 to 6.8 after I gave up statins (shock horror from the doctor)I have been lchf for 11 months now have lost 11 kgs and haven't had to take any diabetes meds for 8 months.Do some research on cholesterol and statins and you will probably come to the same conclusions that I did.Not worth worrying about.As many people with
Normal cholesterol readings die as people with higher readings.

Speedbird said:

I thought I was doing well but my latest results show level of 8.3!
HDL 2.41
LDL. 5.6
Tryglicerides 0.6
Up from 6.4 from last November. Which were:
HDL 2.15
LDL. 3.8
Tryglicerides 0.9

I'm doing the lchf diet but maybe eating too much cheese or cream in coffee. But I really don't want to go on statins and just know that is was the doc will push for.

Anybody out there that can give me some advice. Much appreciated. Quite anxious about how much it has gone up. X

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if you change to eat olives and olive oil instead cholesterol can lower that way too, and if you stop eating bread and other high spiking carbs .. eat lots of salat and instead of the cheese eat olives,eat nuts and instead of animal fat eat avocado .. and lots of vegetables grown over ground the fibres also help cholesterol down.. you could also put coconut oil in your coffee it is so healthy, or if you like more the milk like kind then use almond milk with very healthy fats that also seems to lower the LDL cholesterol

My personal theory is that the more repair the body need to do the more cholesterol it produces .. most cholesterol seems to be produced by the body and not uptaken from the food one eat... doing regular exercise also lowers cholesterol even if is is just long walks, maybe because the body is made to be used and really decay when we dont use it and metabolism also betters if we move some every day and do not just sit most of the day...

I don´t know how your lifetyle is and how good you are in lowering carbs , but if your lifestyle is not yet ideal then there is space to change ... bit by bit... I myself was extreemely tired initially but slowly got more and more energy from moving and now feel better than I have done for 14 years... so change can occure in even people that had almost given up all hope... my cholesterol levels went from almost 6 to around 4 in 3 months

I sympathise with your dilemma. Often high cholesterol levels can be due to biological factors not just diet.
I decided that my decision whether or not to take statins was about relative risk management. The side effects versus serious health risks of cvd /strokes ;which are already high risk for diabetics anyway. Recent research has shown that some of the claimed side effects are not substantiated; anyway. I opted to take my Drs advice and take statins and have had no problems (fingers crossed) I have to trust my medical advisors to some extent when the risks of ignoring them may mean suffering a serious/fatal medical episode

The important figure to me is the Trigs one. That has come down to an awesome 0.6. Personally, if I had your results I would refuse statins. You may find if you reduce saturated fats then your cholesterol goes down. I am a firm believer that the body produces the optimum level of cholesterol that it needs at any given time. There is no way I would interfere with this process by artificially lowering it.

Just my own thoughts; we all have to make up our own minds in the cholesterol debate.

@Speedbird

Not sure if you like reading loads of sciency stuff but this page is packed with it if you fancy delving into the detail.

http://cholesterolcode.com

Speedbird said:

I thought I was doing well but my latest results show level of 8.3!
HDL 2.41
LDL. 5.6
Tryglicerides 0.6
Up from 6.4 from last November. Which were:
HDL 2.15
LDL. 3.8
Tryglicerides 0.9

I'm doing the lchf diet but maybe eating too much cheese or cream in coffee. But I really don't want to go on statins and just know that is was the doc will push for.

Anybody out there that can give me some advice. Much appreciated. Quite anxious about how much it has gone up. X

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Hi Speedbird,

I know how you feel, the same thing happened to my cholesterol on a low carb and higher fat diet. Initially mine were even higher than yours, then very similar to your numbers and latest test left me at 7.3 TC, LDL 4.8, HDL 1.8 and TG 0.76. I too was very concerned about this, so I paid for additional tests such as :

1. Small dense LDL cholesterol - my reading was 0.84 nmol/l which is in the normal range - from what I have read myself this appears to be the real dangerous type.
2. Homocystein - my reading was 6.8, normal is below 10 according to lab, so fine here. Some say this is a better indicator of heart disease risk than LDL-C. If you are familiar with Dr. Bernstein, it is one he talks about.
3. CRP (C-Reactive Protein) - my reading was 0.3 mg/dl, below 5 is considered normal. It is a marker for inflammation and again a lot of docs talk about it being a marker for heart disease.
4. Oxidised LDL - my reading was 16 U/L, normal below 55 U/L. This again from what I have read is a very important marker for atherosclerosis.

So all the above additional tests gave me a more complete picture of my cholesterol, you will see a lot of the doctors online who support the LCHF way of eating talking about LDL-C as a marker for heart disease on its own as pointless. However, it doesn't really help then when your own doctor is telling you that you need statins, I mean it leaves us with a very tough decision.

My endo wanted me to take statins, but I won't. I went to another doctor for a second opinion, he suggested the above tests which I also asked for from my research online, got the above tests completed and as you can see they were all fine and the new doctor was very happy and said absolutely no way should I take statins. His advice was to keep doing what I am doing!

So there you go, doctors differ as always but hopefully my new doctor is right! I have read enough about statins anyway to put me off, plus it doesn't seem clear cut in terms of any benefit from lowering your cholesterol. I will say that the above additional tests have helped to put my mind at ease on the issue for now, I also feel well and I am in control of my blood sugar levels which is the most important thing as a diabetic. Perhaps you can also get some of the above tests performed and do your own research on the topic and see if there are other tests you might like to get carried out.

I have cut down on cheese and cream, still eat both occassionally cheese more so than cream. I upped my intake of the MUFAS, avocados, olive oil, macadamia nuts, walnuts. My numbers have been coming down, so perhaps that helped, but who really knows!

Finally, check out the work of:

Dr. Aseem Malhotra
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
Dr. Zoe Harcombe
Dr. Richard Bernstein

There are many more, you probably know or have heard of all the above already, but if not google them. They all have blogs/websites and lots of detail on this area.

A high LDL figure can be frightening to many, because it has successfully (but wrongly) been labelled 'bad' cholesterol.
Similarly, people think an LCHF diet will reduce this 'bad'cholesterol, which it often does, so are shocked when it doesn't.

Increasingly people in the medical field are coming to see that LDL is a POOR predictor of cardiovascular risk, but most doctors believe it is. Hence their love for statins, which is great for lowering LDL.
The important factor with LDL is particle size. Small dense particles are harmful, whereas large fluffy particles aren't.
So how do we find out if our LDL is large or small ?
The best predictor is your TG/HDL ratio,which in your case is 0.25 (0.6/2.41).
If you look at the PDF article, and scroll down to p.1683 you'll see a graph showing how the lower the ratio, the LOWER the presence of small dense harmful particles, and the HIGHER the presence of large fluffy non-harmful particles.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...TlYxUkMtbp_X59C7g&sig2=kvU0ZeK8FAVXYACf1svrLw

Further indications of this TG/HDL ratio importance can be found on Google
https://www.google.co.uk/search?num....serp..0.13.2003...0i131k1j0i10k1.Vv9ROBBcCDo

I don't know your age, but over age 60 higher cholesterol levels are positively associated with living longer.

Geoff

Also, my doc advised me to take an Omega 3 supplement

Speedbird said:

Thank you Chiet1. Something to get my teeth into.
May I ask where you had your extra tests done and how much it was ? X

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Unfortunately I don't live in the UK, so I can't advise on that or the cost in the UK. I am in Switzerland, everything costs more here so they are likely less than what I paid. I don't have the individual breakdown in front of me and I got a number of other tests carried out.

I am sure there are many places in the UK where you can get these tests. Have a word with you doctor, you can always push them on it, even though they might say it is a waste of time. If you insist, I don't think they can refuse unless they don't do the tests. However, I think such tests are quite normal nowadays.

Best thing to do is read up on it from many sources to help put your mind at ease, determine the tests you want and then go have a discussion with your doctor. If the doc is not being open minded or willing to help and insistent on statins, get another doctors opinion. Its frustrating I know! Given your excellent HDL and TG (and ratio) like Librarising mentioned above, I know my doctor wouldn't put you on a statin as my ratio is similar to yours.

Speedbird said:

I thought I was doing well but my latest results show level of 8.3!
HDL 2.41
LDL. 5.6
Tryglicerides 0.6
Up from 6.4 from last November. Which were:
HDL 2.15
LDL. 3.8
Tryglicerides 0.9

I'm doing the lchf diet but maybe eating too much cheese or cream in coffee. But I really don't want to go on statins and just know that is was the doc will push for.

Anybody out there that can give me some advice. Much appreciated. Quite anxious about how much it has gone up. X

Click to expand...

I know that doctors freak out when they see total cholesterol levels that high, but your triglyceride and HDL levels are absolutely excellent. While LDL is usually considered to be an unmitigated bad guy, according to some of the latest research when your triglyceride levels are that low then almost all of you LDL is in the healthy (not small dense) form.

See for example:

Speedbird said:

Hi Everybody. And thank you. I feel a bit better from reading your posts.

The first cholesterol test was non fasting, the second, the higher reading was fasting. In fact I had just finished my 5 day fasting at that stage. I'm not sure if that would make a difference.
I exercise a lot with walking and other stuff at the gym and I am just 56kg so would not want to lose anymore weight. BMI at 21.
Food wise I am on lchf and plenty of olive oil and fish. But when I feel hunger, in goes the cream in my coffee and my dessert is usually a plate of cheese. This may be my downfall but carbs very low.
Thanks BBC I will check out that link.

Also, I think there may be a post about berberine and lowering cholesterol.
X

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If you had just finished a 5 day fast then you definitely need to read the link I gave you. The guy who wrote it (Dave Feldman) found that his cholesterol was extremely high after an extended fast of 2 days. He then tried overeating before his next test and got his "best" numbers ever on a 5000 cal a day high fat diet.
I often wonder if we actually know very much about cholesterol testing is it just snapshot of our levels at that time and how much does it vary during the day? I'm guessing that little research has been done about cholesterol variations due to food, time of day etc.

This study from the late 1950's looks quite interesting...

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/circulationaha/22/2/247.full.pdf

Quite large variations in serum cholesterol levels measured hourly over a few days in 10 subjects...

I wonder if this has ever been repeated.. can't find anything else at the moment.. Also for women there seem to be quite large fluctuations depending on where in the menstrual cycle they are..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130301/

As well as maybe depending on the time of year

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040427054002.htm

I wonder how many doctors are aware of these variations before they write out that stain prescription...

The LDL figure by itself is not significant. The ration of Trigs/HDL is an indication of the particle size of LDL. The large "fluffy" LDL is not a problem, but the small dense LDL is. The higher the Trig/HDL ratio the more chance the LDL is the small dense variety.

Ideally the ratio of Trig/HDL should be less than 2. Anything over 5 may be a problem.

I'd be fine with those numbers if they were mine. Hope that helps.

uart said:

I know that doctors freak out when they see total cholesterol levels that high, but your triglyceride and HDL levels are absolutely excellent. While LDL is usually considered to be an unmitigated bad guy, according to some of the latest research when your triglyceride levels are that low then almost all of you LDL is in the healthy (not small dense) form.

See for example:

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I have just watched the Prof Sikaris video. He was suggesting that a LCHF diet may increase cholesterol, but it will reduce trigs and increase HDL resulting in a lowering of sdLDL (small dense LDL) which is the variant most associated with heart disease.

This video shows the link between cholesterol and all cause mortality. The lower the cholesterol level the higher the rate of mortality from disease such as liver cancer.