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

Very high cholesterol since switching to LCHF.

F

fendertele

Well-Known Member
Messages
221
Since my initial diagnosis I've had two further tests carried out 2 months apart to monitor my diabetes on both tests they have confirmed with my new diet i'm now back in normal ranges of a non diabetic person and they were over the moon.

However at the first checkup they noticed my Cholesterol was going up and I told the nurse not to worry as I had read on this forum that this can happen when changing to the LCHF. I cant find the post that stated this now but based on this I was not too concerned thinking it would right itself in time.

Now two months on the same tests were performed and my cholesterol is now sitting at 8 and they are wanting to move fast and put me on statin* or something along those lines.

I train hard in the gym 3/4 times a week and I dont smoke or drink so the only lifestyle choice that could be causing this is my diet of LCHF.

What do I do now ? I do not want to be on statin so the only option i guess is to change my diet which then will mean dropping the LCHF to a more fat decreased/carb increased level but risk my BS levels going back up.

Please help me has anyone else had this issue ?
 
This is a common theme on this forum so I'd advise you to check out the discussion thread started by BulkBiker.
If your blood pressure, weight and blood glucose levels are better after LCHF should you worry about high LDL ?
Ask your doctor/nurse who have been told to lower LDL via a statin, how much longer you would live if you took one in the absence of known heart disease? Be aware that the average based on pharma studies is 4 days. In other words you could lower your LDL via a statin but should consider whether it will actually give you a benefit.
Ask about common side effects too e.g. muscle aches though not everyone gets these and you may feel it is worth the extra reassurance of lowering your LDL anyway.
A better indicator of your cv health is supposed to be your trig/HDL ration where low carb gives you a favourable ration (the trig much lower than the HDL) indicating your body isn't coping with excess carbs (trigs are a marker of carb consumption where the muscles can't use up/store the amount you're eating).
Finally I'd say that if you are training hard then your body may simply have a flow of energy from stores now being utilised rather than the carbs that you ate (coal versus rocket fuel). This is a theory put forward Dave Feldman who is a lean 'hyper responder' i.e. someone who gets high hdl with no other indicators of heart disease risk. He is fairly geeky but a good communicator so well worth a google.
 
I'm so confused and dont know what way to turn... I feel I've been doing good things for my healthy by going LCHF and all those months of being strong willed and sticking to the same food and diets to lower my bg levels only to put myself now at risk of heart attacks/strokes etc...

The thing is I get what your saying and and this may be the case but for someone like myself with no medical knowledge regarding all this... Its very confusing which way to turn.. trust my gp's advice and start pumping these drugs into me or ignore him in favour of comments on a forum ( no offense)

I chose the latter in regards to the diet over ruling their laid out diet of healthy veg and certain carbs in favour of this LCHF diet and I now am at a point to I continue to against my docs for a second time or do I turn back and follow them now and admit I made a mistake.

It's not even at a fairly high level but at a scarily high level of 8.

Here is a post found by another person that ignored the levels.

"I suffered a mild heart attack in Jan 2011 after which I found out my total cholesterol was 7.8 which my Cardiologist said was "industrially high"! So it would be wise to amend your diet, I cut out cheese, crisps, pies & pastries - I was already avoiding butter, marg & salt. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and try oat bran on your high fibre breakfast. Also eat oily fish at least twice a week. Your GP should prescribe statins which can cause side affects, but there are various types so your Dr. can experiment. I suffered reaction from Atorvastatin, but was then prescribed Rusavastatin initially at a low dose 5mg every other day to allow the body to adjust. In my case this has been increased and I now take 10mg every day and my total cholesterol is now down to 4.7 and I working with my GP to get it below 4. Best of luck, listen to the experts not the doubters Mike"
 
fendertele said:
trust my gp's advice and start pumping these drugs into me or ignore him in favour of comments on a forum ( no offense)
Click to expand...

Ok ... so has the forum advice brought your blood sugars back to "normal" levels?
Why do you think we are right there and yet wrong on cholesterol?

Do you have a full lipid breakdown as the total cholesterol number is pretty meaningless?

Had you fasted before the blood was taken?

Do you know that your surgery gets a financial incentive for getting "high cholesterol" patients on a statin?
 

I c

I dont know what to think, I could suggest to someone in pain to smoke a crack pipe and they could tell me they no longer feel any pain it doesnt make it a good suggestion in the long run.... Im not questioning whether LCHF can improve blood sugar levels as it does100% and can be seen in the results I'm questioning at what cost.

I have requested the full breakdown I was supposed to be getting access to these weeks ago but due to the covid situation certain things are pushed back out of priority.

I was fasted before blood was taken I had my last meal around 11pm the night before and then tested at 8:45am the next morning. This was the same for the previous test.

I was sitting around7, 2 months ago and im now above 8 which according to most charts on the internet indicates extremely high.

I will have a look at the link and also keep you up to date if I get the full results... I have phone consultation with my Doctor booked for next monday to discuss starting this statin :/
 
bulkbiker said:
Here's the thread mentioned above.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/cholesterol-and-statins.156985/
Click to expand...


Also what about this user he is just one of many with the same pattern of having cholesterol above 7 and having heart attacks/strokes etc.

Here is a post found by another person that ignored the levels.

"I suffered a mild heart attack in Jan 2011 after which I found out my total cholesterol was 7.8 which my Cardiologist said was "industrially high"! So it would be wise to amend your diet, I cut out cheese, crisps, pies & pastries - I was already avoiding butter, marg & salt. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and try oat bran on your high fibre breakfast. Also eat oily fish at least twice a week. Your GP should prescribe statins which can cause side affects, but there are various types so your Dr. can experiment. I suffered reaction from Atorvastatin, but was then prescribed Rusavastatin initially at a low dose 5mg every other day to allow the body to adjust. In my case this has been increased and I now take 10mg every day and my total cholesterol is now down to 4.7 and I working with my GP to get it below 4. Best of luck, listen to the experts not the doubters Mike"
 
What was your cholesterol level before starting lchf? What is your breakdown of cholesterol figures? How many carbs are you having a day? There may be plenty of dietary wriggle room still.
 
lucylocket61 said:
What was your cholesterol level before starting lchf? What is your breakdown of cholesterol figures? How many carbs are you having a day? There may be plenty of dietary wriggle room still.
Click to expand...


This I will need to get from the doctor.

All they told me at my first check up was that my cholesterol had shot up to just over 7 which would indicate that it was much lower pre lchf as they had never discussed my cholesterol prior to the diet change. I got blood tested regularly pre diabetes diagnosis for my prolactinoma and If it had been a concern would have been mentioned and then with this weeks test showing above 8 would mean it's further increased.

My carb count is most likely in the 20-60g range as on paper most of my meals will just look like protein/fat but will have some carb counts within them.

For example.

Bacon
Eggs
Cheese
Mayo
90% dark Choc
Greek Yoghurt
Steak
Liver
No added sugar/salt Tomato Ketchup
zero carb protein shake
salad
double cream
water
coke zero
chicken

Is my weekly shopping list and my meals consist of the above.

I've stuck to this since January/February when I got the diagnosis.

I've requested my results on paper in full to see if I can post on here and have others look at it so will update once i get word back on it.

My big concern is I feel bloody fantastic and because of this im training like a beast in the gym and now im worried I might just keel over mid heavy squat lol!
 
Last edited:
No offence to be taken but the answer is to educate yourself so you can make an informed decision and not rely on us or you dr solely.

my dr couldn’t answer how much personal benefit I’d get, nor argue that statins raise bgl, had no idea about ratios, no idea about the relative importance of the breakdown of the component parts of total cholesterol or the calculated assumptions used on ldl figures that don’t apply to low carb diets giving misleading high levels, nor the fact that large buoyant ldl is protective unlike small dense particles and much more common on low carb. In short he didn’t have a clue either beyond “panic” at higher levels and follow the rules blindly.

in your shoes I’d do the reading and look at the breakdowns and ratios before taking the tablets. Then think about what diet amendments you could try first. Then and only then would I even consider the statins.

Once you have your breakdowns (before and after low carb) plug them into these calculations too for more perspective
https://cholesterolcode.com/new-report-tool-launched/
https://www.hughcalc.org/chol-si.php

Some more relevant links here, some from drs others to give an overview of the issues involved that you can choose to further investigate if you want to. I suspect you’ll already be better educated on the subject than many gp’s at this point.
https://www.crossfit.com/health/the-great-statin-scam-time-to-clean-up-the-mess
http://healthinsightuk.org/2019/10/...ocent-how-the-real-killers-were-tracked-down/
https://drdechickerand.com/2017/cholesterol-is-good/
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/15/1111
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/cholesterol-basics
https://ideapod.com/world-renowned-heart-surgeon-speaks-really-causes-heart-disease/
https://podcast.app/saturated-fats-...ial-e2509331/?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=share
 
@fendertele - I think in your shoes I would be asking my medical advisor for a written rationale for making a recommendation for a statin - if you have no cardiac history. With history, it can be different.

I recently wrote of my experiences participating in a piece of research looking at cardiac health in T2s (well, actually focusing on chronic heart in those without a known cardiac issue), where I underwent a massive range of tests from many, many bloods, to ECG, Echcardiongrammes, stress ECG, CT Scans, MRI and MRI with Adinosine induced stress.

In all of that my Total Cholesterol came in at something like 7.6 (apologies I don't have he written report with the numbers yet), but when the cardiologist looked at it, he found no reason to suggest a statin. I'd been dreading that discussion - needlessly.

That's good enough for me.

Edited to ask if you are still losing weight? This can impact lipid scores.
 
A quarter of us has our total cholesterol affected by the food we eat. My total cholesterol was 10 mmol/l after switching to LCHF. I follow the out-dated health advice and keep my total daily cholesterol at 200 mg/100 grams as a diabetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cholesterol_in_foods
My total cholesterol is in the low 5 mmol/l's. My diabetes team would prefer 4 mmol/l for a diabetic but I've convinced them as my BS's are in the normal range, I can run it higher, similar to a non-diabetic.
 
My doc fully expected this from me when I told him I went keto. I know everyone responds differently…

I also weight train and do cardio ( walking) .
Diet was mainly fish, salmon, avocados, nuts, coconut cream and oil for added fats.

I love bacon, double cream etc. I just didn’t gravitate towards them.

yeah so all I can suggest is to change your fats up and see it that makes a difference before going the medication route
 
When taking a statin I was dragging myself up stairs by the rails of the bannister, my joints and muscles screamed, my memory was dreadful and I forgot a lot - simply lost the recollections. I had to relearn all my songs and it has taken years to get back to something like normality.
If I was told that I should take a statin or be dead in 6 months I'd take the 6 months.
 
Hi folks sorry for the meltdown earlier just came as such a shock i now have the results in front of me.

lipid profile

cholesterol - 8.4 mmol/l
triglycerides - 1.3 ......
HDL cholesterol - 1.0
LDL cholesterol calc'd - 6.8
VLDL chol calc'd - 0.6
chol/hdl ratio - 8.4

Liver function

total bilirubin - 10 umol
alt - 42 u/l
ast - 25 u/l
alkaline phosphate 88 u/l
albumin 42 g/l

Diabetes

HBA1C (IFCC) 35 mmol/mol

Details : elevated liver enzyme.
 

There are as may people admitted to hospital with heart problems with "normal" cholesterol levels as there are with high.
Your HbA1c is now great you "calculated" LDL (note the calculated not measured) is an inconvenient number and your triglyceride/HDL ratio at 1.3 is slightly high. However you hadn't water fasted for the 12-14 hours recommended pre blood drawer so your previous meal could have had an impact on the figures.. plus its hard to tell from one set of figures whether the numbers are going in the right direction. Maybe wait another 3 months and see if you can get another test withthe right fasting protocol and see where they go?
Cholesterol is a very dynamic thing and goes up and down all the time like blood glucose so a single snapshot can't be enough for diagnosis.
As a comparison these are my HbA1c and cholesterol figures. In June 2020 I had just completed a 7 day fast when the bloods were taken hence the elevated triglycerides.
 

Fendertele - forgive the pedant in me, but when you're posting blood results it's really useful to post the lab assay ranges. They're all broadly similar, but sometimes they vary a bit.
 
Hi everyone thanks for the replies.

Yeah they just told me fast for 8 hours I'll have a look at the printout they gave me for the ranges.

So from my numbers then I dont need to go on statin and can just refuse to take them when he tries to get me to go on them on monday ?
 
Unless your HCP visits you every evening, they can't force you to take any medication, and even then unless there are VERY specific circumstances it would be assualt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…