LCHF diet, high cholesterol but everything else fine

[humphreydog]

Hi,

as the title suggests. Been on a low carb , relatively high fat diet since diagnosed last November. Bloods rarely above 7.0 now. Think I've cracked the diabetes ( type 2) I had to go into hospital Monday. Not on any medication and every test came back A+ except my cholosterol levels. last tested ( fasting ) Jan 16

HDL 1.12
LDL 5.1
TRI 3.8

level 8.0

Hdl ratio 7.1

Tested again Monday ( 3/5) - non fasting and levels EXACTLY the same.

so 2 questions.
1. on LCHF diet how long does it take for cholosterol levels to stabilise?
2. Should I be worried if the only thing abnormal is high cholosterol? I feel fantastic, exercise regularly, on no medication and drink very little alcohol. If anything I'm slightly underweight despite eating lots of fat !!

thanks

Humphreydog

 

[zand]

Sometimes there's a blip in the cholesterol figures if you are losing weight on LCHF and that improves as your weight stabilises. My own figures got better as I reduced carbs. The increased fat didn't make any difference.

Yes I would be concerned by your trigs figure. The total cholesterol level alone doesn't mean a lot. Here's a thread I started recently for a relative of mine. Maybe some of the tips from fellow forumites would help you too.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/cholesterol-levels-advice-please.100191/

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Depends who you believe. There are some highly regarded medical people who don't worry about it. One has challenged everybody to send him a reference to a piece of research showing a link between high cholesterol and cardio vascular disease. I believe that to this date no-one has. An eminent professor says that if you lower your cholesterol the body just makes more of it.

On the other hand there are people setting targets and dishing out statins.

Personally I don't worry about cholesterol but if I suddenly stop posting then I might be wrong.

 

[Brunneria]

If your tests were non-fasting, then the fats in your last meal (or two) contribute to your Trig score. If you had a LCHF breakfast including fat, that will have warped the results.

Personally, I feel that non-fasting Cholesterol tests are a complete waste of everyone's time, and the NHS' money...

Congrats on all your other A+ scores. That is a great achievement!

 

[zand]

I agree with @Brunneria and I find it a little strange that they even tested for the breakdown of cholesterol using a non-fasting test. Whenever I've not fasted I've only had the total cholesterol measured.

 

[humphreydog]

thanks for the replies. Been eating alot of eggs in omelettes so think I will cur down on them a little. Seeing my GP tuesday so will ask for a fasting test, the morning of the hospital treatment I had a large high fat breakfast so that could well have contributed to the figures. If so it means my cholosterol figures are getting better as the first test in Jan was a fasting one and the latest one wasnt. So maybe I'm going in the right direction anyway.

Humphreydog

 

[Bluetit1802]

My practice never does fasting tests for cholesterol, and I get the full breakdown of lipid components. However, as I know a non-fasting test is likely to skew the Trigs score, I fast anyway.

No point in cutting down on the eggs. Dietary cholesterol makes very little difference to overall results. Our bodies make it. There is plenty of research on this if you Google. Eggs are good for us.

I just want to add @humphreydog that I love your avatar - are they your boxers?

 

[zand]

I agree that eggs aren't a problem at all and yes hopefully your fasting figures will be much better.

Edit: I can't understand why they would even attempt to test trigs on a non-fasting test....unless they want to scare us all into taking statins?

 

[bulkbiker]

I agree that eggs aren't a problem at all and yes hopefully your fasting figures will be much better.

Edit: I can't understand why they would even attempt to test trigs on a non-fasting test....unless they want to scare us all into taking statins?

you may well have confounded the evil plot there @zand...

 

[SunnyExpat]

Saturated fat drives my cholesterol up.
I tolerate non saturated .

 

[Indy51]

I vaguely (vaguely 'cos I'm in the "I don't care what my cholesterol is" camp) recall watching a talk with Rhonda Patrick discussing genetic factors that can make some people tolerate saturated fat better than others. Might be worthwhile swapping some of the saturated fats for monounsaturated like avocado, olives, etc. to see if that helps.

Definitely don't understand why they would test non-fasting triglycerides.

You might want to check out the LowCarb Dietitian's blog post about her own experiments with cholesterol numbers:
http://www.lowcarbdietitian.com/blog/category/cardiovascular disease

 

[humphreydog]

My practice never does fasting tests for cholesterol, and I get the full breakdown of lipid components. However, as I know a non-fasting test is likely to skew the Trigs score, I fast anyway.

No point in cutting down on the eggs. Dietary cholesterol makes very little difference to overall results. Our bodies make it. There is plenty of research on this if you Google. Eggs are good for us.

I just want to add @humphreydog that I love your avatar - are they your boxers?

HI Bluetit, yes they are my boxers. Me and the missus have now rescued five in total. sadly we have lost both of them in the picture but have two more, Humphrey and Frank. The one on the left in the picture is Charlie she was deaf and the one on the right is Metz, she was a ****** but our first rescue !! I LOVED her so much. Both lived to over 13 before we lost them. Frank, our latest rescue is also deaf and also a ****** ! Humphrey is chilled !!

 

[humphreydog]

I vaguely (vaguely 'cos I'm in the "I don't care what my cholesterol is" camp) recall watching a talk with Rhonda Patrick discussing genetic factors that can make some people tolerate saturated fat better than others. Might be worthwhile swapping some of the saturated fats for monounsaturated like avocado, olives, etc. to see if that helps.

Definitely don't understand why they would test non-fasting triglycerides.

You might want to check out the LowCarb Dietitian's blog post about her own experiments with cholesterol numbers:
http://www.lowcarbdietitian.com/blog/category/cardiovascular disease

Thanks for the link , will check it out. I will have a look at the staturated fat issue.

Humphreydog

 

[Bluetit1802]

HI Bluetit, yes they are my boxers. Me and the missus have now rescued five in total. sadly we have lost both of them in the picture but have two more, Humphrey and Frank. The one on the left in the picture is Charlie she was deaf and the one on the right is Metz, she was a ****** but our first rescue !! I LOVED her so much. Both lived to over 13 before we lost them. Frank, our latest rescue is also deaf and also a ****** ! Humphrey is chilled !!

At the risk of derailing this thread, well done for taking in rescued boxers. That is admirable. I've had them all my life. At one time we had 7. Our last 2 lived to be over 15. We just have 1 now, Lola, who is 8. We wanted a new puppy last year to keep Lola company but had to make the dreadful decision that we were getting too old for another boxer, looking at how old we would be in 10 years time and how boisterous and strong they are, so we plumped for a mini-boxer, a Boston Terrier. She really is a mini boxer and a delightful dog.

Sorry for derailing.

 

[Indy51]

Further re Rhonda Patrick on saturated fat, if you search Youtube for "Joe Rogan Experience #773", the discussion starts at around 2:54:00 towards the end of a very long health discussion covering various topics.

 

[Oldvatr]

thanks for the replies. Been eating alot of eggs in omelettes so think I will cur down on them a little. Seeing my GP tuesday so will ask for a fasting test, the morning of the hospital treatment I had a large high fat breakfast so that could well have contributed to the figures. If so it means my cholosterol figures are getting better as the first test in Jan was a fasting one and the latest one wasnt. So maybe I'm going in the right direction anyway.

Humphreydog

Studies show that what we eat in terms of cholesterol has little or no effect on our own personal lipid panel. As stated above, our bodies makes its own cholesterol, and in fact the cholesterol we eat is generally incompatible with our bodies,and we do not use it. I suspect that cutting out eggs or shellfish will not lead to lower cholesterol levels.

 

[humphreydog]

Ok, this is officially weird -

fasting blood test on 10th may ( I had drank 1 cup of coffee with ful fat milk as I didnt knowthey were going to do it that day, I though I would have to book an appointment. )

HAba1c 6% happy days

total cholosterol 8.3 mmol
HDL 1.07 mmol
LDL - can't measure BECAUSE
triglycerides 10.5 mmol

chol/hdl level 7.8

*** ???? my triglycerides were 3.8 mmol a week prior to this test on a non fasting test !

Also liver function test shows everything normal apart from Gamma gt level of 100 u/l and it should be below 50u/l. Thye are querying my alcohol intake but I drink less than a bottle of wine a week.

last liver function in Novemeber 2015 had high gamma gt ( 139), alakaline phospahese 130 and alt level of 63. The last two levels have now fallen into normal range and my ggt has dropped 39 points so it looks like my liver is moving in right direction but my triglycerides are a concern !

Any ideas and on a lchf diet does it sometimes take a while for cholosterol to fall? I ahve onlt being doing this diest sinve last november.

thanks

Humphreydog

 

[Bluetit1802]

Ok, this is officially weird -

fasting blood test on 10th may ( I had drank 1 cup of coffee with ful fat milk as I didnt knowthey were going to do it that day, I though I would have to book an appointment. )

HAba1c 6% happy days

total cholosterol 8.3 mmol
HDL 1.07 mmol
LDL - can't measure BECAUSE
triglycerides 10.5 mmol

chol/hdl level 7.8

*** ???? my triglycerides were 3.8 mmol a week prior to this test on a non fasting test !

Also liver function test shows everything normal apart from Gamma gt level of 100 u/l and it should be below 50u/l. Thye are querying my alcohol intake but I drink less than a bottle of wine a week.

last liver function in Novemeber 2015 had high gamma gt ( 139), alakaline phospahese 130 and alt level of 63. The last two levels have now fallen into normal range and my ggt has dropped 39 points so it looks like my liver is moving in right direction but my triglycerides are a concern !

Any ideas and on a lchf diet does it sometimes take a while for cholosterol to fall? I ahve onlt being doing this diest sinve last november.

thanks

Humphreydog

Your test was not fasting. you had coffee with full fat milk which negates any fasting. Did you tell them this so they could label it as a random test? It is possible the milk affected your trigs score, although 10.5 is high even considering the milk. Normally trigs fall on a low carb diet, but on a blood test not long after consuming fat (milk) they can rise because they are out and about in your bloodstream doing their job dealing with the fat. If I were you I would ask for another test straight away, and this time make sure you fast for 10 hours with nothing but water.

Well done on the HbA1c.

 

[humphreydog]

Hi Bluetit, thanks for the reply and well done on your boxer rescue efforts 7

7 at once is a few too many for me !! Boston terriers are cute but a bit small for me !

I did tell them I had coffee and milk that morning and they told me it wouldn't matter - I think they got that wrong !!

Having read all the research on cholosterol I'm not going to worry about it yet. I will cut down on the saturated fat a little but as everything else is going in the right direction then I will leave it a while longer and see how things go. I'm thinking I will take another look at things once I've been on LCHF for a year.

I had stevens johnson syndrome about a year ago as a result of taking allopurinol for gout prevention which then caused the allergic reaction so I am extremely reluctant to take pharma drugs. I suspect this has caused some damage to my liver and it is in the process of repairing itself and this could be the reason for my cholosterol readings. I much prefer natural remedies - I'm now having two raw cloves of garlic daily and will monitor the results. ( my wife loves me for this ))4

Humphreydog