Reducing cholesterol by eating LCHF

[CherryAA]

Those of us who have been doing LCHF for a while already know that when you restrict carbs , the end result is probably going to be a reduction in total cholesterol but also a reduction in the " bad " LDL " and Triglycerides and an increase in HDL.

Dave Feldman did a live experiment on this at the 2017 ketofest which is explained here

with the results pretty much as expected in the chart attached.
The LCHF community is very interested in the results on twitter.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

I dropped from 5.3 to just over 3. Finally gave me the confidence to throw out the statins. What is interesting with my cholesterol is that it can go from 4 to 5.7 in 3 months. I'd love to experiment and see how quickly it can change. I need to look into cost of home monitoring.

 

[Bluetit1802]

My HDL has jumped up, test after test.

My trigs reduced immediately (on first review test) and have remained stable at 0.6 for over 3 years since.

My LDL reduced by 0.5mmol/l and remained stable at that level UNTIL NOW. On my last test it had gone up by 0.5, so back where I started. Interestingly, this review test was at 3pm and I fasted beforehand for 20 hours other than tea in the morning. I wonder if that was the reason?

 

[bulkbiker]

I dropped from 5.3 to just over 3. Finally gave me the confidence to throw out the statins. What is interesting with my cholesterol is that it can go from 4 to 5.7 in 3 months. I'd love to experiment and see how quickly it can change. I need to look into cost of home monitoring.

From what I have read it could go from 4 to 5.7 over the course of day.. depending on what you have eaten and when you test. So far as I know there isn't a home test kit for cholesterol worse luck.. would be interesting to check it regularly.

 

[Guzzler]

The topmost reason I enjoyed the presentation was the use of words like science, transparency and non advocacy. The correlation between dietary fat and cholesterol that was shown on the graphs was amazing, like a light being switched on. Also, the fact that cholesterol can be manipulated before a test in three days diet only says to me that at best the tests currently should be regarded as a *very* rough guide.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

So far as I know there isn't a home test kit for cholesterol

Boots. http://www.boots.com/boots-pharmaceuticals-cholesterol-home-test-kit-10064612

At £12 a go I'll give it a miss for the time being. Although I had a suspicion that it can change rapidly and in the interest of science (LOL) I might try it out. I know my total cholesterol can change from 4 to 5.7 in 3 months and in that time I had increased my intake of cream/yoghurt/cheese. I wonder if I could get it to change that much in 3 days.

 

[bulkbiker]

Boots. http://www.boots.com/boots-pharmaceuticals-cholesterol-home-test-kit-10064612

At £12 a go I'll give it a miss for the time being. Although I had a suspicion that it can change rapidly and in the interest of science (LOL) I might try it out. I know my total cholesterol can change from 4 to 5.7 in 3 months and in that time I had increased my intake of cream/yoghurt/cheese. I wonder if I could get it to change that much in 3 days.

http://cholesterolcode.com/extreme-cholesterol-drop-experiment/
have a read of this..

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

http://cholesterolcode.com/extreme-cholesterol-drop-experiment/
have a read of this..

That's interesting! I'd be concerned about the extra calories as my weight will not budge unless I starve myself. I'm having my annual HbA1c and cholesterol next Tuesday so I might have to wait a bit if I'm to try it out. If it's as successful as it claims , it could make cholesterol tests useless. I may have read that wrong but it looks like a change in diet, increasing fats and calories, in the days before a cholesterol test could affect the outcome. So, for everyone concerned about the pressure put on them to take a statin, there might be a simple solution.

I'm lucky in that I have come to terms about not taking statins, I'm unhappy with the lies and deceit that I experienced and some of the threats that people I know have been given. One in particular, a man of 70, no health problems, played golf 3 times a week has now stopped because his legs hurt so much and all because his GP has said take them or die young. I'd like to think that this was an isolated case of a bullying GP but who knows.

I'm hoping that like thalidomide, the consequences of taking statins will be fully acknowledged and GPs wont's have to use deceitful tactics to get patients to take them.

 

[Bluetit1802]

I may have read that wrong but it looks like a change in diet, increasing fats and calories, in the days before a cholesterol test could affect the outcome.

It affects the triglycerides the most - which is why it is essential to fast before the test. If you eat a fatty meal, even a coffee with cream, before the test the trigs will be swimming about doing their job and you will get a higher level. When I was diagnosed I had 2 consecutive tests a few days apart. The first was a random test. Trigs were 2.01. The second was fasting. Trigs were 1.25.

 

[DaveKeto]

My HDL has jumped up, test after test.

My trigs reduced immediately (on first review test) and have remained stable at 0.6 for over 3 years since.

My LDL reduced by 0.5mmol/l and remained stable at that level UNTIL NOW. On my last test it had gone up by 0.5, so back where I started. Interestingly, this review test was at 3pm and I fasted beforehand for 20 hours other than tea in the morning. I wonder if that was the reason?

 

[DaveKeto]

Greetings all! I was pinged to come here and thought I’d hit a bunch of these questions — hope this helps!

with the results pretty much as expected in the chart attached.
The LCHF community is very interested in the results on twitter.

Yes! 16% / 25.7 LDL decrease across the board. I haven’t had a chance to do a more formal write up, but you can see my “tilted ladder graph” here on my LC USA presentation:

My HDL has jumped up, test after test.

My trigs reduced immediately (on first review test) and have remained stable at 0.6 for over 3 years since.

My LDL reduced by 0.5mmol/l and remained stable at that level UNTIL NOW. On my last test it had gone up by 0.5, so back where I started. Interestingly, this review test was at 3pm and I fasted beforehand for 20 hours other than tea in the morning. I wonder if that was the reason?

Two things:

- Yes — I’d want to keep fasting before the blood test at 12-14 hours, but no more than that. Low quantity or multi-day fasting in particular before a blood test will likely spike your cholesterol numbers.
- Note that if you get to a “healthy weight”, the odds increase that your LDL will go up. My current theory given the evidence is that this is perfectly normal and even expected given your muscle and cardiac tissue require more direct mobilization/delivery from VLDL-originating LDLp (sorry, that was super geeky). Take a look at Lean Mass Hyper-responders to get a sense of it from the far end of the spectrum… cholesterolcode.com/are-you-a-lean-mass-hyper-responder/

The topmost reason I enjoyed the presentation was the use of words like science, transparency and non advocacy. The correlation between dietary fat and cholesterol that was shown on the graphs was amazing, like a light being switched on. Also, the fact that cholesterol can be manipulated before a test in three days diet only says to me that at best the tests currently should be regarded as a *very* rough guide.

Thank you, Guzzler! Indeed, I genuinely believe there’s a serious problem with current studies and how the methodology is determined (especially when done after the data is in to shape a narrative). I’m extremely proud of the fact I announced this hypothesis literally in my presentation before the resulting data was in — which didn’t come until we tested the day afterward.

And yes, I could write about 10k words on why these new patterns completely reset my thinking on current cholesterol studies, but I have a good summary of it near the end of that presentation.

Boots. http://www.boots.com/boots-pharmaceuticals-cholesterol-home-test-kit-10064612

At £12 a go I'll give it a miss for the time being. Although I had a suspicion that it can change rapidly and in the interest of science (LOL) I might try it out. I know my total cholesterol can change from 4 to 5.7 in 3 months and in that time I had increased my intake of cream/yoghurt/cheese. I wonder if I could get it to change that much in 3 days.

I know mine can. In fact, I just demonstrated this again with my most recent Energy Status Experiment - http://cholesterolcode.com/energy-status-experiment/

Even if one doesn’t believe in low carb WOE, they should see from my research — at a minimum — that this lipid system is so much more dynamic than we were led to believe.

That's interesting! I'd be concerned about the extra calories as my weight will not budge unless I starve myself. I'm having my annual HbA1c and cholesterol next Tuesday so I might have to wait a bit if I'm to try it out. If it's as successful as it claims , it could make cholesterol tests useless. I may have read that wrong but it looks like a change in diet, increasing fats and calories, in the days before a cholesterol test could affect the outcome. So, for everyone concerned about the pressure put on them to take a statin, there might be a simple solution.

To be sure, the success rate right now is about 86%, which happens to coincide with the Ketofest experiment. Although, for those 3 where it did rise, it only went up 1-2%, for the 19 that dropped, it fell by 5-38%.

I'm lucky in that I have come to terms about not taking statins, I'm unhappy with the lies and deceit that I experienced and some of the threats that people I know have been given. One in particular, a man of 70, no health problems, played golf 3 times a week has now stopped because his legs hurt so much and all because his GP has said take them or die young. I'd like to think that this was an isolated case of a bullying GP but who knows.

I'm hoping that like thalidomide, the consequences of taking statins will be fully acknowledged and GPs wont's have to use deceitful tactics to get patients to take them.

I don't take a formal position on statins as I try to be a good scientist and not claim what I don't know for certain. That said, I have many, many reasons for why I'd likely never go on a statin given what I know now. Even if I were to be convinced high LDL is itself a net all-cause mortality marker (highly unlikely), I'd want to resolve it with diet before a statin... no question.

It affects the triglycerides the most - which is why it is essential to fast before the test. If you eat a fatty meal, even a coffee with cream, before the test the trigs will be swimming about doing their job and you will get a higher level. When I was diagnosed I had 2 consecutive tests a few days apart. The first was a random test. Trigs were 2.01. The second was fasting. Trigs were 1.25.

That’s exactly right! Trigs from your meal are literally being trafficked in your bloodstream via Chylomicrons.

—

Hope this was helpful, guys! There’s so much good work on this forum and if I had more bandwidth, I’d be on here quite a bit more often.

 

[Guzzler]

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Last night I was reading that dietary cholesterol has no impact on serum cholesterol, have I understood this correctly? It made sense to me yesterday but I've slept since then!

 

[Indy51]

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Last night I was reading that dietary cholesterol has no impact on serum cholesterol, have I understood this correctly? It made sense to me yesterday but I've slept since then!

The problem is terminology. There are different things called cholesterol that strictly speaking aren't. Decoding it all can be a nightmare.

@DaveKeto has a useful simple guide you might find helpful:
http://cholesterolcode.com/a-simple-guide-to-cholesterol-on-low-carb/

 

[Guzzler]

The problem is terminology. There are different things called cholesterol that strictly speaking aren't. Decoding it all can be a nightmare.

@DaveKeto has a useful simple guide you might find helpful:
http://cholesterolcode.com/a-simple-guide-to-cholesterol-on-low-carb/

Thank you, I will peruse this and see if I can get a handle on it.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Last night I was reading that dietary cholesterol has no impact on serum cholesterol

Years ago I was told by my GP to avoid eggs and prawns and anything containing cholesterol. My understanding now is that the body makes its own cholesterol, that's how important it is for the body, and the more you eat the less the body makes is what I've read.
Even Ancel Keys realised that ingested cholesterol did not affect overall cholesterol way back in the late 50s, early 60s. So very disappointing that GPs were telling people to cut back on eating anything with cholesterol in, and within the last 5 years.

 

[DaveKeto]

Perhaps someone can clarify this for me. Last night I was reading that dietary cholesterol has no impact on serum cholesterol, have I understood this correctly? It made sense to me yesterday but I've slept since then!

For the most part, dietary cholesterol has very little impact on serum cholesterol. 85% of cholesterol in your body right now was made by it, with only the remaining 15% from diet.

The reason eating foods that are high in cholesterol can lead to higher serum cholesterol is because these foods are likewise high in *fat* as well (of course). Because you will be trafficking more fat from your diet in LDL particles (as triglycerides), cholesterol will be along for the ride in the same cargo hold.

But as I always remind everyone, cholesterol is along for use as medicine/cell construction/immune response and most of the time doesn't get used at all, making its way back to the liver for other fates such as hormones or bile salts.

 

[Guzzler]

For the most part, dietary cholesterol has very little impact on serum cholesterol. 85% of cholesterol in your body right now was made by it, with only the remaining 15% from diet.

The reason eating foods that are high in cholesterol can lead to higher serum cholesterol is because these foods are likewise high in *fat* as well (of course). Because you will be trafficking more fat from your diet in LDL particles (as triglycerides), cholesterol will be along for the ride in the same cargo hold.

But as I always remind everyone, cholesterol is along for use as medicine/cell construction/immune response and most of the time doesn't get used at all, making its way back to the liver for other fates such as hormones or bile salts.

Thank you. The cruise ship/life raft analogy makes sense now.

 

[CherryAA]

Greetings all! I was pinged to come here and thought I’d hit a bunch of these questions — hope this helps!



Yes! 16% / 25.7 LDL decrease across the board. I haven’t had a chance to do a more formal write up, but you can see my “tilted ladder graph” here on my LC USA presentation:

Two things:

- Yes — I’d want to keep fasting before the blood test at 12-14 hours, but no more than that. Low quantity or multi-day fasting in particular before a blood test will likely spike your cholesterol numbers.
- Note that if you get to a “healthy weight”, the odds increase that your LDL will go up. My current theory given the evidence is that this is perfectly normal and even expected given your muscle and cardiac tissue require more direct mobilization/delivery from VLDL-originating LDLp (sorry, that was super geeky). Take a look at Lean Mass Hyper-responders to get a sense of it from the far end of the spectrum… cholesterolcode.com/are-you-a-lean-mass-hyper-responder/



Thank you, Guzzler! Indeed, I genuinely believe there’s a serious problem with current studies and how the methodology is determined (especially when done after the data is in to shape a narrative). I’m extremely proud of the fact I announced this hypothesis literally in my presentation before the resulting data was in — which didn’t come until we tested the day afterward.

And yes, I could write about 10k words on why these new patterns completely reset my thinking on current cholesterol studies, but I have a good summary of it near the end of that presentation.



I know mine can. In fact, I just demonstrated this again with my most recent Energy Status Experiment - http://cholesterolcode.com/energy-status-experiment/

Even if one doesn’t believe in low carb WOE, they should see from my research — at a minimum — that this lipid system is so much more dynamic than we were led to believe.



To be sure, the success rate right now is about 86%, which happens to coincide with the Ketofest experiment. Although, for those 3 where it did rise, it only went up 1-2%, for the 19 that dropped, it fell by 5-38%.



I don't take a formal position on statins as I try to be a good scientist and not claim what I don't know for certain. That said, I have many, many reasons for why I'd likely never go on a statin given what I know now. Even if I were to be convinced high LDL is itself a net all-cause mortality marker (highly unlikely), I'd want to resolve it with diet before a statin... no question.



That’s exactly right! Trigs from your meal are literally being trafficked in your bloodstream via Chylomicrons.

—

Hope this was helpful, guys! There’s so much good work on this forum and if I had more bandwidth, I’d be on here quite a bit more often.

Question for you - when you do these tests do you also check your fasting insulin levels ? do they respond by going down ?