What's the ideal cholesterol level for type 2?

[ian1968]

Hello everyone,

I'm a type 2, diagnosed in May 2012. I've reduced my blood sugar levels and initially got my cholesterol down to between the recommended level of 1-5 mmol/L, but my last blood test was just above that 5 - 5.3.

What is the ideal cholesterol level for a type 2? What's your cholesterol? This is for serum cholesterol by the way, rather than serum LDL cholesterol (my level there is 3.6, which is outside of the 1-3 recommended range).

Thanks very much. I've been focussing so much on reducing my blood sugars that I've probably not focussed too much on cholesterol. Time to get this sorted now...

 

[Bluetit1802]

Total cholesterol 3 to 4
Triglycerides under 1.7
HDL 1.2 to 3.5
LDL under 2
TC/HDL ratio under 4
Trig/HDL ratio under 2, the lower the better

 

[ian1968]

Sorry I seem to have got my ratings slightly wrong. They are:

Triglycerides 0.8
HDL 1.3
LDL 3.6

My serum cholesterol is 5.3
And my serum cholesterol/HDL ratio is 4.1

Thanks for the reply. Where did you get those figures from? The ones quoted on this site are as follows:

• Total cholesterol: under 4.0 mmol/l
• LDL levels: under 2.0 mmol/l
• HDL levels: at least 1.0 mmol/l (men) or 1.2 mmol/l (women)
• Triglycerides: 1.7 mmol/l or less
• Total cholesterol/HDL ratio: under 5.0

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/Diabetes-and-cholesterol.html

 

[Bluetit1802]

Other than the total cholesterol figure, I took the others from my own blood results print out, where the normal band range is quoted. The total cholesterol figure came from somewhere else, I forget now, but it is the range recommended for diabetics.

 

[Brunneria]

I don't have my cholesterol as a health priority.

Did you know that the older you get, the higher your cholesterol gets naturally, and in older people there is a link between low cholesterol and raised risk of death?

http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/study-lower-your-cholesterol-and-raise.html

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats-full-story/#cholesterol

These articles show quite different perspectives, but all seem to agree that the evidence does not support the last 20 years of anti-fat anti-cholesterol thinking.

Also, here's a thread showing how this new thinking is actually hitting the mainstream

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/eat-butter.59710/#post-566584

Give it another 10 years and the NHS might actually start taking notice and stop pushing all those unnecessary statins...