CHOLESTEROL MYTH – INFLAMMATION IS THE REAL ENEMY

This is a fabulous snippet from CBN which explains why we should no longer fear cholesterol and saturated fats, but instead inflammation is the real enemy. The Cholesterol Myth explains this further, but this clip pretty much summarises the issue.

Inflammation is caused by processed foods, omega 6 fats, trans fats, seed oils, stress and a high sugar diet. And what calms inflammation? Cholesterol. That’s right, cholesterol is trying to ‘patch up’ areas of damage to the blood vessels.

Cholesterol is not the best predictor of heart health – triglycerides are. Raised triglycerides also reflects your ability to metabolise carbohydrates, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and uncontrolled T2 diabetes.

The 4 things you can GIVE UP TODAY for your long term health are –

Processed foods
Sugar
Trans fats
Seed oils

Read more at the low carb mega site Ditch The Carbs here http://www.ditchthecarbs.com/2015/03/26/cholesterol-myth-2/

Cholesterol is not the best predictor of heart health – triglycerides are. Raised triglycerides also reflects your ability to metabolise carbohydrates, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and uncontrolled T2 diabetes.

Going by what happened with my recent cholesterol blood tests they are now only doing TC and HDL levels, trigs and LDL are not covered which I suspect is down to cost savings.

I'm not overly bothered for myself as my trigs have always been < 1.00, but for those who want to find out how LC is affecting their full lipid panel it must be annoying to say the least.

Just found this from the NICE guidelines:

Non-high density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol is seen to be a better cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk indicator than low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. It is more accurate, more practical and cost effective. A fasting blood sample is not needed. This is more convenient for patients and may reduce the need for additional blood samples. Those requesting lipid profiles for their patients – such as GPs, practice nurses and community pharmacists – may need to change their practice. Laboratories may also need to change their reporting procedures.

http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg181/chapter/implementation-getting-started

So it now appears NICE are not now using LDL as a high risk indicator same as the American Heart Associtaion then.  On my reckoning that means a good HDL/TC ratio is a far better indicator than LDL alone.

"So it now appears NICE are not now using LDL as a high risk indicator same as the American Heart Associtaion then.  On my reckoning that means a good HDL/TC ratio is a far better indicator than LDL alone."

We have been saying this for almost seven years. From our website. http://www.lowcarbdiabetic.co.uk/index.htm

Far more meaningful are the individual components of total cholesterol, known as high density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides. Trig. / HDL ratio is perhaps the single most significant measure of heart disease risk.The lower the triglycerides and the higher the HDL, the better.

New Cholesterol Guidelines Abandon LDL Targets

WASHINGTON, DC – It's been more than a decade since theAdult Treatment Panel (ATP) issued the third report for the detection, evaluation, and treatment of elevated cholesterol and nine years since those recommendations were updated, but new guidelines from the American College of Cardiology(ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA), developed in conjunction with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), are now available online in both the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation [1].

And they contain some substantial changes from ATP 3.

Gone are the recommended LDL- and non-HDL–cholesterol targets, specifically those that ask physicians to treat patients with cardiovascular disease to less than 100 mg/dL or the optional goal of less than 70 mg/dL. According to the expert panel, there is simply no evidence from randomized, controlled clinical trials to support treatment to a specific target. As a result, the new guidelines make no recommendations for specific LDL-cholesterol or non-HDL targets for the primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Instead, the new guidelines identify four groups of primary- and secondary-prevention patients in whom physicians should focus their efforts to reduce cardiovascular disease events. And in these four patient groups, the new guidelines make recommendations regarding the appropriate "intensity" of statin therapy in order to achieve relative reductions in LDL cholesterol.

My bold link to info here http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/814152

My last lipids a week or two ago had no LDL, just non-HDL (and trigs). LDL is just a number from an equation anyway, so I can do it myself if I have the trigs number. But we know that it's numbers of particles in LDL that's important, not the total mass, and with low trigs we will likely have the big fluffy ones not the nasty small ones. But the NHS won't do an LDL particle count as it's too expensive.

sanguine wrote:My last lipids a week or two ago had no LDL, just non-HDL (and trigs).  LDL is just a number from an equation anyway, so I can do it myself if I have the trigs number.  But we know that it's numbers of particles in LDL that's important, not the total mass, and with low trigs we will likely have the big fluffy ones not the nasty small ones.  But the NHS won't do an LDL particle count as it's too expensive

I'm limited now so I've only got HDL and non-HDL to go on as TC to me is meaningless without a full lipid profile  

My latest results are TC 5.91 and HDL 2.26 which gives me a non-HDL of 3.65.

Optimal: Less than 130 mg/dL (3.37 mmol/L)
Near/above optimal: 130-159 mg/dL (3.37-4.12mmol/L) 

http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/lipid/tab/test/