LCHF and Cholesterol

Hi, I've been on a Low Carb diet, with a reasonable amount of fat for most of this year, and it has worked well, Lost lots of weight ( 105 to 84 Kg), and my Blood levels are better Hba1C down from 6 to 5.4, in the period.

My Cholesterol levels have gone skew Tested on Monday.
I list two sets of readings, one from Last year, and my current levels

Date 30/7/2013                 Date 22/9/2014

Total Cholesterol        4.1                 5.5
LDL Cholesterol          2.3                3.6
HDL Cholesterol          0.9                0.9
Non HDL Cholesterol   3.2                4.6
S- Chol/HDL Ratio      4.6                 6.1
Triglycerides              1.93               2.25

SO, Total Cholesterol now above acceptable, 5.0 seems to be the limit.

I've heard that LCHF is supposed to lower Cholesterol, but does not appear to be so in my case.
I don't know a lot about the meaning of the various components, but would anyone like to comment or suggest anything.

I am currently booking a Dr appointment to discuss

I am increasing Carbs slightly (From about 30-50) per day, as I want to stop loosing weight . I've got to my goal of 85Kg that I wanted.
Regards

I am going to post this in "the other place " as well, to see what they suggest

yikes

you know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and cholesterol is really a mystery to me, mine went down dramatically, i can't really remember the numbers but it was 6.8 i think then went down to 2.8, i haven't had it checked in a year as I'm currently on a avoid doctor policy, but i have read many times about cholesterol being low isn't a great thing, especially in women who are on the wrong side of teenager, so is this a bad thing? i don't know, but i do understand why you would be worried and i hope someone has a great answer.

This is long and very sciency, but brilliant! Have a read when you've got a spare month.
http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-straight-dope-on-cholesterol-part-i

He explains everything you ever wanted to know about cholesterol.

Thank you im going to read now, as all I know is the total should be under 5!

The cholesterol con is arguably the greatest con ever pulled in the history of the world. It earns the drug companies around $30 billion a year and in the UK the authorities such as NICE advisor's to the NHS want to double the people taking statins, most on the NICE advisory panel re statins have connections with big pharma.

Just as many people have heart attacks with so called good cholesterol numbers, as so called bad. Low cholesterol numbers are a strongly associated with depression, suicide and violence in men. The older we get the lower the cholesterol number the greater indicator for serious diseases such as cancer and other serious situations. There is no correlation between heart disease and cholesterol numbers, non whatsoever. If anyone wants it I could post hundreds of papers and articles on the thread re statins and the cholesterol lunacy, just let me know. This is all about flogging medication and is just as big a con as healthy saturated fats from natural sources are dangerous and diabetics should eat starchy carbohydrates with every meal, it's all set up to make big pharma ever more money.

This short video from Dr.Malcolm Kendrick cholesterol and heart disease expert says pretty much all re the cholesterol hypothesis.



Eddie

I find with low-carb my HDL goes up and my LDL goes up; but the test doesn't distinguish between different particle size in LDL; apparently the larger LDL particles are 'heart healthy' and the small vLDL particles are not; with low carb you get the large ones and not the small ones.

I'm surprised your triglycerides are elevated though.

The other major point is; it's all a lot of nonsense anyway; per the video that Eddie posted.

I had a work medical and then my diabetic bloods done for the NHS the next day and my cholesterol fell from 6 something to 5 something in that period; so a single cholesterol test is probably even more meaningless than we thought.

Here is a reassuring study highlighted again by Dr Kendrick that the optimum cholesterol levels for men (in terms of all cause mortality) is about 5.5 and for women the higher the better.

So, you are bang on the money; exactly where you want to be in terms of living longer. Of course this will upset your health care team...

http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2012/09/25/silence-was-the-stern-reply/

I'd say as long as  your HbA1c is good and your weight is good which it is then you are doing very well.

Don't be surprised though that you will come under pressure to take a statin.

Best

Dillinger

RANDBURG wrote:Hi, I've been on a Low Carb diet, with a reasonable amount of fat for most of this year, and it has worked well, Lost lots of weight ( 105 to 84 Kg), and my Blood levels are better Hba1C down from 6 to 5.4, in the period.

My Cholesterol levels have gone skew Tested on Monday.
I list two sets of readings, one from Last year, and my current levels

Date 30/7/2013                 Date 22/9/2014

Total Cholesterol        4.1                 5.5
LDL Cholesterol          2.3                3.6
HDL Cholesterol          0.9                0.9
Non HDL Cholesterol   3.2                4.6
S- Chol/HDL Ratio      4.6                 6.1
Triglycerides              1.93               2.25

SO, Total Cholesterol now above acceptable, 5.0 seems to be the limit.

I've heard that LCHF is supposed to lower Cholesterol, but does not appear to be so in my case.
I don't know a lot about the meaning of the various components, but would anyone like to comment or suggest anything.

I am currently booking a Dr appointment to discuss

I am increasing Carbs slightly (From about 30-50) per day, as I want to stop loosing weight . I've got to my goal of 85Kg that I wanted.
Regards

Just a quick question re your Trig level-Did you drink any alcohol in the 24 hours before they performed the test? I have heard that can give you a high false positive result sometimes even though the Doctors don't make you aware of this possibility.

Paul wrote:

RANDBURG wrote:Hi, I've been on a Low Carb diet, with a reasonable amount of fat for most of this year, and it has worked well, Lost lots of weight ( 105 to 84 Kg), and my Blood levels are better Hba1C down from 6 to 5.4, in the period.

My Cholesterol levels have gone skew Tested on Monday.
I list two sets of readings, one from Last year, and my current levels

Date 30/7/2013                 Date 22/9/2014

Total Cholesterol        4.1                 5.5
LDL Cholesterol          2.3                3.6
HDL Cholesterol          0.9                0.9
Non HDL Cholesterol   3.2                4.6
S- Chol/HDL Ratio      4.6                 6.1
Triglycerides              1.93               2.25

SO, Total Cholesterol now above acceptable, 5.0 seems to be the limit.

I've heard that LCHF is supposed to lower Cholesterol, but does not appear to be so in my case.
I don't know a lot about the meaning of the various components, but would anyone like to comment or suggest anything.

I am currently booking a Dr appointment to discuss

I am increasing Carbs slightly (From about 30-50) per day, as I want to stop loosing weight . I've got to my goal of 85Kg that I wanted.
Regards

Just a quick question re your Trig level-Did you drink any alcohol in the 24 hours before they performed the test? I have heard that can give you a high false positive result sometimes even though the Doctors don't make you aware of this possibility.

Nope, no alcohol for about 4 years, I was falling over to much

RANDBURG wrote:Hi, I've been on a Low Carb diet, with a reasonable amount of fat for most of this year, and it has worked well, Lost lots of weight ( 105 to 84 Kg), and my Blood levels are better Hba1C down from 6 to 5.4, in the period.

My Cholesterol levels have gone skew Tested on Monday.
I list two sets of readings, one from Last year, and my current levels

Date 30/7/2013                 Date 22/9/2014

Total Cholesterol        4.1                 5.5
LDL Cholesterol          2.3                3.6
HDL Cholesterol          0.9                0.9
Non HDL Cholesterol   3.2                4.6
S- Chol/HDL Ratio      4.6                 6.1
Triglycerides              1.93               2.25

SO, Total Cholesterol now above acceptable, 5.0 seems to be the limit.

I've heard that LCHF is supposed to lower Cholesterol, but does not appear to be so in my case.
I don't know a lot about the meaning of the various components, but would anyone like to comment or suggest anything.

I am currently booking a Dr appointment to discuss

I am increasing Carbs slightly (From about 30-50) per day, as I want to stop loosing weight . I've got to my goal of 85Kg that I wanted.
Regards

I do find it surprising that your trigs have increased on LC/HF when the opposite is usually the case, alcohol and carbs are the main culprit for raising trigs and both can be ruled out in your case. Your HDL is another anomaly most LowCarbers report a  rise due to the higher fat intake whereas yours has not changed. I'm thinking rather than increase carbs maybe upping the fat may be more beneficial:!:

i cant disagree, my trigs went from 2.8 to 0.6

Maybe have a look at the quality of the fats in your diet. Apparently trans fats can have a bad effect on trigs as well. Try reducing Omega 6 and up monounsaturated, saturated and Omega 3.

Do you eat much fish, Randburg?

Hello Randburg. There are anecdotal reports that weight loss can increase trigs over the short term in some people. I know the time between your tests is not exactly short term - so maybe test again in a few months and see if they are still elevated.

As you probably already know, and posters here have pointed out, trigs and HDL are usually an indication of carb and fat intake, i.e. LCHF = trigs down, HDL up.

The LDL-C numbers on LCHF vary wildly between people. Some lower, some shoot to the moon. Why that is, no-one knows for sure - there are so many other unknown factors at play.

If your doc says your total C and LDL-C numbers are "unacceptable", I'd take that to mean his/her statin reference book is telling them that and you should instead go with what you think is best.

Without knowing exactly what you've been eating, it's impossible to speculate on why your HDL hasn't moved. Your blood sugar is down, so your body is liking something about what you're doing.

I'm no expert but playing around, trying to influence lipid numbers can often prove futile. If you're eating bugger all sugar and giving your body plenty of real food and nutrients, and you feel good for it and have no obvious negative effects, then sometimes that's a better indication of the success of your diet than a "x number is too high...take this tablet" kind of diagnoses.

All the best.