• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Interpreting cholesterol results

S

Spiral

Well-Known Member
Messages
856
Location
Darkest Buckinghamshire
My GP gave me a print out of my last blood test. I need some help to understand the cholesterol results, this is what it says on the paper.

Serum lipids
Serum total cholesterol level 5.4mmol/L
Serum HDL cholesterol level 1.2mmol/LSerum cholesterol/HDL ratio 4.5
Serum triglicerides 1.5mmol/L
LDL CHOLESTEROL (DERIVED) 3.5mmol.L
Will be filed as 44lL.00 Serum LDL/HDL ratio

My GP says this is too high, although I have reduced it since the first one was taken in March. How are my ratios and are they good or bad? What do I need to do if it is bad?

Thanks
 
(below copied from a previous posting of mine)
Lipid panel
Shows the amount of 'good' and 'bad fat in your blood
(Cholesterol tests are fasting blood tests)
plasma should be clear, lemon or straw coloured. Opalescent plasma is indicative of high lipids and trigs.
(my lab normal ranges, others may differ slightly)

Total Cholesterol range 4.00-6.2mmol/l
HDL ('good') cholesterol female >1.40 female post menopause and male > 1.15mmol/l
LDL ('Bad') cholesterol (calculated according to Friedewalds formula) <3.85 (but many specialists including mine feel people with diabetes should be below 2.6mmol)
Cholesterol/HDL female <4.5, male <5.00
Triglycerides 0.35- 1.70 mmol/


Your figures seem mostly within normal ranges however many docs feel that lower levels of LDL and good levels of HDL are better for people with diabetes ,they consider that its the equivalent of a prior heart attack.

General advice normally given. Here from the the Harvard School of public health

Exercise regularly. (very good for raising HDL)
Aim for a healthy body weight.
Avoid trans fats.
Limit foods rich in saturated fat, like red meat and whole milk, ice cream, and other full-fat dairy foods.
Focus on foods rich in unsaturated fats, dietary fiber, and healthful protein. Fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, nuts, and seeds are all excellent choices.

lots more detail on their website includinglinks the research to back it http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/index.html

Another more specific method is the portfolio diet which stresses almonds and foods high in soluble fibre (see this newsarticle, particularly the last part and the link to Amanda Ursells site)http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article2882933.ece

You'll obviously get a variety of responses on the dietary means
:wink:
 
HDL is pretty good, LDL and trigs are a bit high.

The all important trigs/HDL ratio is 1.25 and in UK numbers is best under 1.3 so you just scraped through <G>

Dropping more carbs and adding more saturated fats will reduce the trigs and increase the HDL hopefully at the expense of the LDL. IMO you can never have too many Omega 3s (fish, fish oil, grass fed meat) and monounsaturated is also good, there's more controversy about Omega 6s which are usually hugely out of balance with O3s thanks to all those "heart healthy" vegetable oils and margarines. Agree on the exercise though!

The whole subject is much more compicated than most sites for the general public, or some doctors, appreciate. Too little LDL causes different problems from too much. The trigs/HDL ratio is a marker for insulin resistance and also indicates particle size of the LDL (small dense particles bad, large fluffy particles good), the *number* of particles is a factor inasmuch as they are based on lipoprotein-alpha, and cardiovascular risk also depends on inflammation but just try getting CRP or homocysteine tested.

My GP is quite clued in, technically my LDL was too high at 2.70 but she wasn't bothered as my HDL and trigs were so good. She was even more pleased when I got it down to 2.4, until I told her how I'd done it <G>

Short version: you're heading in the right direction. LDL has little correlation to risk but is easily lowered with statins which is why everyone concentrates on it (or TChol which is cheaper to measure), the other guys respond to dietary tweaking which means NOT eating a Heart Healthy diet. In fact a "hearty" meal may be just that. Who knew? <G>
 
Thanks for these responses, I feel much happier about resisting my GPs offer of statins now. The numbers are on the way down and the dietary chages I've made will probably improve the figures overall :D
 
Top post Trink.
I'd agree, you have nothing to worry about there Spiral. Your HDL & trigs will very probably fall with your carb consumption. Your doctor needs to re-read the research before he even thinks about prescribing statins to a female. There is absolutely no evidence of any benefit to women in taking statins, in fact there's plentiful evidence that higher cholesterol levels are associated with longer healthier lives in women.

Best wishes,

fergus
 
Not wishing to hijack your post Spiral but as you have had great responses from the super 'old faithfuls' I have got a couple of questions re Cholestrol that your post has prompted:
These were my results from March:
LDL 3.40
HDL 3.40
Trigs 3.0
Total Cholestrol 6.2

Judging by the responses to Spiral these figures would appear quite high-the GP was going to start me on statins but then he hasn't started me on metformin yet until he gets a reply from a Professor (see my Metformin post)!!!!
Phoenix-you state that the cholestrol tests are fasting but I had mine done at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and done as part of a battery of blood tests-would my figures be more higher considering I would have had breakfast and dinner??
Trink-how do I work out my ratios and/or are they bad?
Fergus-I took some comfort that statins appear not to be beneficial to women LOL!
(Female 56, pre-diabetic-still confused on what is the 'right 'diet!!)
Thanks
 
Feel free to chip in, witsum. I have learned loads here and, ideally understand enough to ask the questions I need to ask to get things under my control and as far as I can see, more questions lead to more understanding.

I'm not good at the medical model :? especially as "normal" seems to equal male as oh-so-many of teh clinical trials are done on men :? :evil: Men and women are not the same. There is also a lot of politics associated with healthcare, especially for women, just look at the pressure to get us on statins.

One of my oracles on womens health is the Boston Womens Health Book Collective, who wrote the classic women's health book "Our Bodies Ourselves" - there was a UK version published in the 1980s (updated in 96) which I still dip in to now. However, they do have a website that I consult regularly.

This link will take you the Our Bodies Ourselves web page for cholesterol.
http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/ ... .asp?id=65

My diabetes was picked up by my GP at the end of January when I had some chest pain and I was referred to the chest pain clinic at my local hospital after taking several fingerfuls of blood for testing. I was tested thoroughly by the clinic and I don't have any early signs of heart disease. The chest pain was a combination of a panic attack (living on unacceptable levels of stress) and muscle pain.
 
Spiral
Cheers for that link-made interesting reading and confirms your issue about research and statistics being predominately male orientated and the fact that women are more routinely given statins.
I have found this to be the case as my brother recently had a 6.3 total cholestrol and similar HDL/LDL levels to mine but statins not even mentioned to him-just told to watch his diet and would be rechecked next year!!
 
Back
Top