High cholesterol - Type 2 for 6 weeks

First of all, which bits of your cholesterol does she think is high?
Did you fast for this test?
I personally can't see anything remotely significant that is bad enough to require statins. But I'm not a doctor.
Have you any heart problems? It appears that men with cardiac problems may benefit from statins, but not women or anyone without heart problems, and of course they can raise blood sugar levels..

It is good she has allowed you 3 months grace, but even then all she can do is offer them to you. She can't insist you take them. You need to do a search on these forums for cholesterol and statins. There are many threads, links, and videos. Read them, watch them, and make your own mind up.

Cutting right down on carbs will help a great deal, as will eating more omega 3 such as in salmon and other oily fish, walnuts, flaxseed (linseed) and chia seeds. As for fats, again this is up to you, but low carb and low fat never go well together. Cutting carbs means you lose an energy supply so will be tired and hungry. This energy has to be replaced from somewhere, so that means fats. You cannot live off vegetables alone. Eat meat and fish (unless you are a vegetarian of course), plus lots of eggs, cheese, nuts, seeds and dairy. Again, there are many threads on the forums about eating fats and the different types of fats, with all the information you need.

Total: 5.3
LDL: 3.7 SHOULD BE UNDER 3
HDL: 1.05 SHOULD BE OVER 1
Trigs: 1.2 SHOULD BE UNDER 1.9 IF FASTED. UNDER 2.3 NON-FASTING
Ratio: 5.04

It is the trigs and the HDL that are important. Your HDL could be better, but of course statins don't work on HDL (only LDL and trigs.)

BB8.HG said:

Hi all,

Currently going through the battery of tests GP surgeries carry out at diagnosis. I’ve just had a call from my GP to say that my cholesterol is high (see below). She mentioned statins immediately, and I asked that she give me the chance to lower it myself and we can test again in 3 months, to which she agreed.

She said I really need to watch my fat intake to bring it down (after much prompting and questioning around what action she suggests) I told her I’d lowered my blood sugar by going low carb and my current home testing was averaging 6.3 (from 18 on diagnosis) so I was finding low carb really positive in that respect. I asked if I should be low carb & low fat, to which she said ‘yes’. She acknowledged that it would be hard and just seemed to randomly say ‘vegetables’ as a lifestyle choice.

Total: 5.3
LDL: 3.7
HDL: 1.05
Trig: 1.2
Ratio: 5.04

I’m doing 1200 calories per day so not overeating. On the occasional days my fat intake has been quite low, I’ve really struggled to reach 1200 and find myself hovering around 800.

What are your thoughts? I’d love some input. Has anyone had high cholesterol and lowered it and maintained BG control at the same time? How long did it take? What did you do?

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I am in a similar situation as you though I eat 50g carbs and moderate fat but probably more calories than you. I have just had my second quarter bloods done and hoping to see improved levels of both Hba1c and statins. My first set of lipids were higher than you..you may have seen my thread re understanding cholesterel results here. I will be interested to see replies to your question.

Hi @BB8.HG as you will most likely be losing weight, some fat will be dumped into your blood stream. It might take 6 to 9 months for this to settle. You can hack your system by perhaps eating oily fish say 3 times a week, use mostly coconut oil, combined with walking (should lower trigs) after each meal, this should up your HDL and improve your trig / HDL ratio.

Remember it is up to you ultimately if you take statins, and that Cholestorol is a moving number as well.

Well done on your sugar numbers, excellent.

So your HDL is on the low side, TG's are fine, LDLc is a bit high. IMO dieting won't affect the HDL at all, the LDLc not much. I think you'd have a better chance with diet if you had high triglycerides (but you don't). I'd take a statin but as everyone knows around here I'm a statin guy because most of my patients have coronary disease and I push statins to help prevent future events. You haven't had an event so you're different in that regard. Guy I saw this week had 5 stents, 57 years old, Type 2 good control, and HDL was 0.6. Statin time for him!

TheBigNewt said:

IMO dieting won't affect the HDL at all,

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So how come my HDL increased on each test I've had from 1.56 to 2.51 and stabilised around that level after going low carb/high fat?

Hi my second to last cholesterol total was 5.9 and my GP wanted me to start Statins. I wasn’t keen to say the least, why take something that’ll raise blood sugars and undo all the hard work I’d done to treat an actual problem by treating a potential one instead? My last cholesterol result was still 5.9 but the numbers within that were better
Several things have happened in between which may or may not have helped. Firstly my weight loss slowed down after losing very rapidly at the start of low carbing, secondly I started drinking Benecol every day, thirdly I started taking a Vitamin B complex and lastly I increased my intake of seeds. Who knows which if any of those reasons helped my numbers, but my GP was much more relaxed about Statins on my last appt, only mentioning them briefly!

Bluetit1802 said:

So how come my HDL increased on each test I've had from 1.56 to 2.51 and stabilised around that level after going low carb/high fat?

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You got lucky. But believe what you want. Keto cures it all right?

TheBigNewt said:

You got lucky. But believe what you want. Keto cures it all right?

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Yep....it's a miracle..

TheBigNewt said:

You got lucky. But believe what you want. Keto cures it all right?

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So people say, but I'm just low carb/higher fat including saturated and am not on a keto diet. My trigs also dropped a lot and have been stable at around 0.6 (from 1.25 on diagnosis). I put it down to the low carb, plenty of omega 3 and as little omega 6 as possible.

Hello everyone,

I was on high fat low carb (35gram) for 6 month, I had a Comp. Metabolic Panel, Lipid panel with LDL/HDL Ratio.
Cholesterol total 247 mg/dL, LDL 156 mg/dL, Triglycerides 164 mg/dL, and Hemoglobin A1C 6.9mg/dL on 2/5/18.
My doctor recommended to take a statin drug but I don’t believe in those medications. I’m trying to reverse the T2D without Diabetes meds.
My HDL is 69 so I’m not worry about the HDL but I’ve to reduce the triglycerides and cholesterol. I found out I’ve a insulin resistant and fatty liver that if I don’t correct them I’ll never reverse T2D Diabetes. I workout a weight trainings 3 times a week and walk 8 miles a day. I’m 5’2” 87 lbs and I’m 67 years old.
I started low fat plant based Whole Foods, I gained a lots of energy that I’m able to do this exercise. I had a complete blood work today and hopefully my result comes back really good. I’m sorry that I can’t convert the numbers to UK, I’m from Japan and reside in USA.