No need to fast before a cholesterol test

Public Release: 27-Apr-2016
No need to fast before a cholesterol test

University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

New research from Denmark, Canada and the US involving more than 300,000 individuals suggests that patients do not need to check their cholesterol levels on an empty stomach. So far fasting has been required before cholesterol and triglyceride measurement in all countries except Denmark, where non-fasting blood sampling has been used since 2009.

Fasting is a problem for many patients, and the latest research shows that cholesterol and triglyceride levels are similar whether you fast or not. Therefore, it is now advised that patients no longer need to fast. "This will improve patients compliance to preventive treatment aimed at reducing number of heart attacks and strokes, the main killers in the world," says Clinical Professor Borge Nordestgaard, Department of Clinical Medicine, Herlev Hospital, University of Copenhagen.

In Denmark, the use of random, non-fasting cholesterol testing at any time of the day irrespective of food intake has been used successfully since 2009. Patients, doctors and laboratories have all benefitted from this simplified procedure. For people at work, children, patients with diabetes and the elderly it is particularly beneficial not to have to fast before blood sampling for cholesterol and triglyceride testing.

The research has just been published in the European Heart Journal.

International recommendation

This is the first international recommendation that fasting is no longer necessary before cholesterol and triglyceride testing. For cholesterol testing after a fast, patients are often inconvenienced by having to return on a separate visit and may default on essential testing. Also, because of fasting cholesterol testing doctors are burdened by having to review cholesterol findings at a later date, additional phone calls, e-mails, or even follow-up clinic visits, placing extra workloads on busy clinical staff. These problems disappear by using non-fasting cholesterol and triglyceride testing.

"That more patients will have their cholesterol and triglycerides measured will facilitate advice from their doctors on how best to prevent heart attacks and strokes in the future. We hope that non-fasting cholesterol testing will make more patients together with their doctors implement lifestyle changes and if necessary statin treatment to reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease and premature death," adds Nordestgaard.

These recommendations represent a joint consensus statement from the European Atherosclerosis Society and European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine involving 21 World medical experts from Europe, Australia and the US.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/uoct-nnt042616.php

Interesting.

My GP was presumably determined to catch me put after my lipids improved significantly from low carbing, and gave me a non-fasting test.

This was a full lipid panel and the labs she used at the time actually measured rather than calculated LDL.

The result was only a whisker different from the fasting tests.  

I assumed this was probably a result of the low carb not shooting up triglycerides, there's been some work looking at postprandial lipidemia, most of which of course follows a low fat diet.

For my last test I was asked if I wanted fasting or non-fasting but experience has shown that when the nurses do the test they don't ask for trigs so I assumed the non-fasting would be the cut down version.

Now the silly sod has failed to send me the test results as I asked her to, I'll have to phone in to find out what went wrong.

As you know fasting is pointless for me since I only get tested for HDL and TC, recently nobblyhead gave one of his links DUK re cholesterol targets for diabetics

Your total cholesterol level should be below 4.0mmol/l.
LDL levels should be less than 2.0mmol/l.
HDL levels should be 1.0mmol/l or above in men and 1.2mmol/l or above in women.
Triglyceride levels should be 1.7mmol/l or less

This does not reflect NICE guidelines as an anonymous bunch of HCP's namely the Diabetes UK Council of Healthcare Professionals has decided to set their own targets

The current NICE guidelines for lipid modification have recommended that a full lipid profile should include measurement of total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol, and triglyceride concentrations. So healthcare professionals are to use non-HDL cholesterol instead LDL-cholesterol. Non-HDL cholesterol is total cholesterol minus HDL cholesterol, but the guidelines do not contain absolute targets for total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol or triglycerides.

However, Diabetes UK Council of Healthcare Professionals (CHP) has advised that the general targets used previously should be maintained as a guide, and healthcare professionals should be encouraged to use their clinical judgement in discussing individual targets. Made up of healthcare professionals across the board, the Council of Healthcare Professionals (CHP) is an advisory body, whose members inform the work of Diabetes UK.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/Guide-to-diabetes/Monitoring/Testing/

To achieve these targets which have no science to support them but are just figures plucked out of the air the majority of diabetics would need statins, this would at least keep DUK corporate sponsors happy

As DCUK were nobblyhead is a mod stick rigidly to nice guidelines this is seen in Daisy's newbie guidelines posts, this begs the question is nobblyhead just another big pharma shill like his fellow mod Osidge AKA dougie the druggie