LDL is a dynamic marker hugely influenced by food

[CherryAA]

The debate about statins continues to rage. One aspect that is new to the research I have seen is that is is possible to change one's level of cholesterol constituents quite easily simply by changing food in the few days before you are tested.
From a personal perspective is seems to me that the situation today is :

• Doctors in general pay little attention to food intake in consideration of cholesterol or heart risk and receive little nutrition education.
  
• Familial hypercholesteralaemia caused a general perception that high cholesterol is bad news for anyone. I have recently that the risk from FH reduces as one ages.
  
• Studies have shown that higher total cholesterol is a good thing as one ages.
  
• Cholesterol is necessary to absorb vitamin D which is essential and studies have shown increasing levels of vitamin D deficiency
  
• Drugs can heavily influence LDL but not yet HDL or Trigs- as such medicine has focused on LDL.
• Diet can influence HDL and Trigs AND LDL
• LCHF will increase HDL ( which is good) reduce Trigs ( which is good) and may or may not change LDL. What is will almost certainly do is put the ratio of HDL/ LDL into an ideal range
• Some people may find a big increase in LDL at the same time as they increase HDL and lower Trigs. These are called hyper responders and they are refusing statins because they see no evidence that the high LDL they have is actually unhealthy and all their ratios remain good
• These hyper responders led by @DaveKeto are showing that LDL is dramatically influenced by the foods eaten in the few days before a blood test - inversely to expectations. i.e. the lower the fat content of your diet , the higher the trigs and the higher the LDL and total cholesterol so anyone who prepares for a blood test by "being good" as many of us do, is probably making their own figures worse.
  
• The fact that LDL changes so dramatically based on diet, when no-one is even asking about diet, seems to me to render most of the studies about LDL utterly meaningless, akin to testing breath ketones and not knowing if the person doing the test had been drinking.

I will continue with a healthy LCHF diet and ignore any suggestions of statins for now. I hope eventually to be come a hyperresponder myself. = High hdl, low trig, high ldl and a good ratio between hdl and ldl.

My consecutive blood tests so far show me that getting HDL up is a slow process , helped by more saturated fats, but its working !

 

[Bluetit1802]

Interesting post.

I have experienced something very odd during 2017.
I was diagnosed in January 2014 and was put on simvastatin. (I knew no different then so took them for around 3 months)
I took myself off statins and for the next 3 years my cholesterol, HDL, LDL and trigs were perfect with excellent ratios.
I lost all my excess weight within the first 10 months after diagnosis and followed the LC diet throughout.
Fastforward to June 2017 my LDL increased and my HDL dropped a little. Trigs still low. Ratios still excellent.
Then in November 2017 my LDL increased again, HDL dropped a bit more, and trigs increased a bit. Ratios still excellent but not as good as previously.

I wasn't happy. Nothing had changed in my routine - BUT in the 2 weeks prior to the November test I was ill and taking paracetamols, although eating normally.

I have no other explanation as to why this happened.

 

[CherryAA]

Interesting post.

I have experienced something very odd during 2017.
I was diagnosed in January 2014 and was put on simvastatin. (I knew no different then so took them for around 3 months)
I took myself off statins and for the next 3 years my cholesterol, HDL, LDL and trigs were perfect with excellent ratios.
I lost all my excess weight within the first 10 months after diagnosis and followed the LC diet throughout.
Fastforward to June 2017 my LDL increased and my HDL dropped a little. Trigs still low. Ratios still excellent.
Then in November 2017 my LDL increased again, HDL dropped a bit more, and trigs increased a bit. Ratios still excellent but not as good as previously.

I wasn't happy. Nothing had changed in my routine - BUT in the 2 weeks prior to the November test I was ill and taking paracetamols, although eating normally.

I have no other explanation as to why this happened.

Do you include much saturated fat in your diet? That is the most reliable food to increase HDL. that is the only bit of your post I would be looking at to understand - when you say it dropped - to what ? mine has gone from 1.14 to 1.60 so far.

 

[Bluetit1802]

Do you include much saturated fat in your diet? That is the most reliable food to increase HDL. that is the only bit of your post I would be looking at to understand - when you say it dropped - to what ? mine has gone from 1.14 to 1.60 so far.

My HDL is a lot higher than yours. It dropped from 2.51 to 2.47 then to 2.1.
Trigs/HDL ratio dropped from 0.24 to 0.42.
LDL increased from 2.8 to 3.4 to 3.6.

Yes, I eat saturated fat and the amount has never changed. My diet as a whole has not changed.

 

[CherryAA]

My HDL is a lot higher than yours. It dropped from 2.51 to 2.47 then to 2.1.
Trigs/HDL ratio dropped from 0.24 to 0.42.
LDL increased from 2.8 to 3.4 to 3.6.

Yes, I eat saturated fat and the amount has never changed. My diet as a whole has not changed.

Interesting, maybe the issue is that as your body has become attuned to the diet, it no longer needs to make excess HDL, the trigs/ hdl is sitll superb as is the HDL /LDL and HDL to total cholesterol. Mayb you are just becoming a lot more efficient at processing foods now. @DaveKeto - dave feldman - cholesterol code might be the guy to ask for comment.