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Understanding cholesterol figures/LCHF diet

georgianakate

georgianakate

Well-Known Member
Messages
64
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Just back from my 2nd introductory appointment with the lovely diabetic nurse - feet checked, retinopathy check scheduled for a couple of weeks, and booked on DESMOND in June. So far, so good.

She took bloods a couple of weeks ago for my cholesterol figures which came out as follows:

Total cholesterol 4.6 (range 2.5 - 6.5, aim for below 4)
HDL 1.1
Total Non-hdl 3.5
Total cholesterol/HDL ratio 4.2

I'm fairly happy as the last time I had my cholesterol checked was last year (pre-diagnosis) and it came out as 6. So far, so good (thank you LCHF!). I was rather expecting to see triglyceride figures within the breakdown, but I'm told that this is the new way of doing the test, and they are just concerned about the total cholesterol and the ratio.

Two questions for the mighty minds of the Forum:

1) Is it possible to work out triglyceride figures from the stats above (or is it going to be bundled with LDL in the 3.5?)
2) My understanding of the LCHF diet is that total cholesterol figures can rise - does HDL rise as well (there's a thought in the back of my head that coconut oil raises LDL, but the large fluffy kind that isn't as bad)?

thanks all,

GK
 
Hi there. Your point 2: yes, typically HDL goes up and trigs go down. It's quite common tho not universal for total C and LDL to rise also. Mine did at last look.

Google Ken Sikaris and also - even better - Peter Attia on how tis works. There's supposed to be an inverse relationship betw triglycerides and the supposedly harmful type of LDL - so if trigs fall, it's supposedly very unlikely that the LDL one has is composed of the dangerous sort.

That's the presumption; to tell the truth, though, no one really knows. I suggest you read Peter Attia,who explains it in exhaustive detail.
 
On reflection, that's a pity they didn't give you the trigs figure. I don't think you can work it out from the rest. For LCHF-ers, the trigs figure would be the big gold star.

Next time, do ask to have it.

LSW
 
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