High Cholestrol Levels, Very Concerned. Opinions?

Diet and Nutrition
21

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
DoubleDuce, if you don’t mind my asking, what is your profession?

(I’m a cardiovascular epidemiologist and rarely encounter someone who actually understands this stuff)[/quote]

�??�??�?�°ts good to hear that. Do you also think there is nothing to worry about in my bloodwork like doubleduce does?
[/quote]

Yes, my advice would largely mirror what DoubleDuce has said.

Your high level of HDL is good. Your triglyceride/HDL ratio is good. Your total and LDL are “high” but the field is slowly moving away from those as markers of CVD risk anyway. The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have finally come around and lifted the recommendation to limit egg consumption (or monitor dietary cholesterol in general).

My suspicion is that yes, eating the eggs may have contributed to a moderate increase in your total cholesterol, but no, that isn’t something I would be worried about. And please, stay away from lipid-lowering medications at all costs.

I think we’re still a little bit away from using the various HDL and LDL particle sizes as true diagnostic measures, but we definitely do know now that they are more important than the total cholesterol numbers we have been using.

BTW, Gorilla, you look fucking great since you’ve cut down.[/quote]

i dropped egg yolks completely, switched from full fat dairy to non-fat dairy and stopped eating red meat.

[/quote]

NO!! Don’t do that!! Don’t do ANY of it. This is straight from the “Wrong Diet Advice 101” that has led America astray for the past several decades. [/quote]

What do you recommend? Should i keep doing what i ve been doing normally?

22

Yes.

Eat mostly meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Source your meat as well as possible, if you have the means (grass-fed beef, free-range chickens). If not, you’ll live.

Cut out most of your sugar and stuff that comes in boxes.

Cut out grains and simple carbs except in the appropriate window (see below).

If you ARE going to eat dairy, make it full-fat.

Eat the yolks.

Basically, do this:

23

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Yes.

Eat mostly meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Source your meat as well as possible, if you have the means (grass-fed beef, free-range chickens). If not, you’ll live.

Cut out most of your sugar and stuff that comes in boxes.

Cut out grains and simple carbs except in the appropriate window (see below).

If you ARE going to eat dairy, make it full-fat.

Eat the yolks.

Basically, do this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/diet-fat-loss/paleo-hybrid-diet[/quote]

I agree with this. My wife is a cardiologist and got a 240 cholesterol. She ADDED 2 whole eggs a day and dropped to 198 with a 60 HDL over 6 months. She also reduced sugar, to under 60 grams a day.

Minimizing omega-6s and sugar will reduce inflammation and the cholesterol is produced in your body to fix the effects of inflammation. If its not omega-6s or sugar, it could be alcohol, smoking, excessive aerobic activity, other stress. And if you were at 225 or even 240 with a 61 HDL and normal triglygerides I would not be a bit worried. 260 is MAYBE a sign that cholesterol is being produced to reduce already present vascular inflammation, but cholesterol is not the cause.

24

Based on the two thread discussions, I would highly recommend that you get Thyroid hormones tested.

25

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Yes.

Eat mostly meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Source your meat as well as possible, if you have the means (grass-fed beef, free-range chickens). If not, you’ll live.

Cut out most of your sugar and stuff that comes in boxes.

Cut out grains and simple carbs except in the appropriate window (see below).

If you ARE going to eat dairy, make it full-fat.

Eat the yolks.

Basically, do this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/diet-fat-loss/paleo-hybrid-diet[/quote]

Just out of curiosity why full fat dairy as opposed to lower fat or non fat. I like full fat grass fed yogurt, cheese and milk but usually consume the low fat or fat free versions to cut calories.

26

[quote]as wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Yes.

Eat mostly meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Source your meat as well as possible, if you have the means (grass-fed beef, free-range chickens). If not, you’ll live.

Cut out most of your sugar and stuff that comes in boxes.

Cut out grains and simple carbs except in the appropriate window (see below).

If you ARE going to eat dairy, make it full-fat.

Eat the yolks.

Basically, do this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/diet-fat-loss/paleo-hybrid-diet[/quote]

Just out of curiosity why full fat dairy as opposed to lower fat or non fat. I like full fat grass fed yogurt, cheese and milk but usually consume the low fat or fat free versions to cut calories.
[/quote]

Here’s an OK answer:

27

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]as wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Yes.

Eat mostly meats, fruits, and vegetables.

Source your meat as well as possible, if you have the means (grass-fed beef, free-range chickens). If not, you’ll live.

Cut out most of your sugar and stuff that comes in boxes.

Cut out grains and simple carbs except in the appropriate window (see below).

If you ARE going to eat dairy, make it full-fat.

Eat the yolks.

Basically, do this:

http://www.T-Nation.com/diet-fat-loss/paleo-hybrid-diet[/quote]

Just out of curiosity why full fat dairy as opposed to lower fat or non fat. I like full fat grass fed yogurt, cheese and milk but usually consume the low fat or fat free versions to cut calories.
[/quote]

Here’s an OK answer:

http://chriskresser.com/still-think-low-fat-dairy-is-the-healthy-choice-think-again[/quote]

Interesting. To expand on part of the rationale in the article, people think of cows as “carb eaters” because they basically eat nothing but grass, but grass yields very little energy to animals because they have no enzymes to break down fiber.

Cows do derive energy from fiber because they have an extremely long gut. This is a characteristic of “ruminant” animals: Cows, bison, lamb, goat, elk, deer, antelope. (Interestingly these are the “divided hoof” ungulate mammals that are not banned by Jewish dietary restrictions, though they also tend to have the least ability to transmit parasitic pathogens which is another plus.

Ruminants long intestinal tract contain huge amounts of bacteria. The bacteria slowly break down fiber at a yeild of about 1 calorie per gram. Now since fiber is a carbohydrate, you might think that the bacteria breaks the fiber down to carbohydrates, but in fact the enzymes that bacteria have break down fiber into butyrate, a fatty acid.

So in reality, both large herbivores like cows, and carnivores like lions live on mosty FAT, herbivores because they live on butyrate formed from fiber, and lions because they eat virtually no carbs. BOTH herbivores and carnivores live on a low carb diet!

Current research suggests that the actual reason why people benefit from dietary fiber, and from probiotics is not about “scouring” the colon, but because the bacteria in your gut turns fiber into butyrate. Butyrate prevents all kinds of autoimmune triggering pathogens from “leaking” into the blood through the gut. Therefore autoimmune diseases are likely instigated BY grain fiber in the diet which rips up the intestinal lining, weakens junctions between intestinal cells, and makes the gut permeable to things that it should not be permeable to.

That is why avoiding wheat is only somewhat connected to gluten. Grains and beans have many other substances that lead to leaky gut.

You have two ways to get protective butyrate into the gut (and butyrate by the way comes from the word “butter”. One is to eat it, in the form of full fat dairy. I think it is fairly high in beef fat too. The other is to eat the right kinds of fiber (cellulose, pectin, potato starch) and to eat probiotics regularly. (It has been demonstrated that the human gut will NOT maintain bacterial cultures indefinitely without reintroduction of probiotic strains every so often.

For the record, intestinal bacteria yield up to about .1 gram of butyrate to the host for each 1 gram of fiber broken down. That’s about 1 calorie per gram of fiber.

28

Thank guys good info.

29

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So, my new bloodwork results arrived.
My LDL dropped from 182 to 111, my total cholestrol dropped from 262 to 174 and my triglycerides dropped from 82 to 46.
You had advised me to check my tiroid hormones and they also came back perfectly fine.

30

I am just going to vouch what others are saying about eating healthy animal and fruit fats, while avoiding grains and “vegetable” oils and refined sugars. BTW, I cook with uncured bacon grease, coconut oil or grassfed butter, and I eat full fat dairy, and eat 3 eggs every day for breakfast, and have been for 3.5 yrs. I had to do some pre-surgery blood work last week, and my total cholesterol was 149, my HDL was 50, and LDL was 87, Triglycerides were 64. Not bad IMO.

31

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:
So, my new bloodwork results arrived.
My LDL dropped from 182 to 111, my total cholestrol dropped from 262 to 174 and my triglycerides dropped from 82 to 46.
You had advised me to check my tiroid hormones and they also came back perfectly fine.[/quote]

Did you make any changes though leading up to this test?

32

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:
So, my new bloodwork results arrived.
My LDL dropped from 182 to 111, my total cholestrol dropped from 262 to 174 and my triglycerides dropped from 82 to 46.
You had advised me to check my tiroid hormones and they also came back perfectly fine.[/quote]

Did you make any changes though leading up to this test? [/quote]

yes.

  • i used to eat 2 whole eggs everyday. i switched to egg whites and didnt eat any yolk for 2 months. ( not even once )
  • i started eating a bowl of oatmeal everyday.
  • i switched from full fat dairy to low-fat dairy.
  • i stopped eating fatty cuts of meat and poultry. i sticked with chicken breasts and lean ground beef.

i read a lot of studies advising that yolks dont increase LDL but its now scientifically proved that in my body it does.

33

No, (as far as egg yolk lowering LDL) the studies I have read most recently show that egg yolk raises HDL and may raise LDL levels, but only because it makes the VLDLs (bad) LARGER (less bad), but since they are bigger the total amount of LDL goes up. Now it looks like only VLDLs matter. So you may have just as many LDL particles, but now have more VLDLs which are worse. Not necessarily, but that is consistent with the research on egg yolks and milkfat.

I am glad if you got what you want but I personally do not see any health difference between your first and second set of tests, except that your cholesterol is now lower than I would want.

34

Funny that OP gets great advices here but do the total opposite in order to fulfill an outdated and possibly dangerous chart.

On the other hand, and since english isn’t my native language, I have a few questions since google didnt help :

  • what are good sources of pectin and cellulose
  • are all grains to be strictly avoided?
  • rice is ok (in order to complete a high carb diet with lots of veggies and fruits), right ? I dont enjoy eating sweet potatoes too often (read that classic potatoes can be very bad for some intestinal cells’ membrans and junctions)
  • what would be a good probiotic cure ?
35

[quote]tontongg wrote:
Funny that OP gets great advices here but do the total opposite in order to fulfill an outdated and possibly dangerous chart.

On the other hand, and since english isn’t my native language, I have a few questions since google didnt help :

  • what are good sources of pectin and cellulose
  • are all grains to be strictly avoided?
  • rice is ok (in order to complete a high carb diet with lots of veggies and fruits), right ? I dont enjoy eating sweet potatoes too often (read that classic potatoes can be very bad for some intestinal cells’ membrans and junctions)
  • what would be a good probiotic cure ?[/quote]

pectin and cellulose: fruit and vegetables
Grains depend on the individual, but I’d generally say from worst to best:
Wheat
Rye
Oats/Corn
Rice

I’ve not heard about a problem with potatoes. The only problem i’ve read about is that the skins might be allergenic to some people. So I think that skinless potatoes are as good as rice. Well someone on this site mentioned that they are sensitive to potatoes.

Probiotics. Naturally fermented picked veggies like that kim chi or some brands of pickles, apple cider vinegar. I think suppliments are fine. Studies have shown that humans lose their gut bacteria if they do not re-introduce them regularly, so you can’t just suppliment for a week every 6 months. Its better to get it regularly.

36

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:
So, my new bloodwork results arrived.
My LDL dropped from 182 to 111, my total cholestrol dropped from 262 to 174 and my triglycerides dropped from 82 to 46.
You had advised me to check my tiroid hormones and they also came back perfectly fine.[/quote]

Did you make any changes though leading up to this test? [/quote]

yes.

  • i used to eat 2 whole eggs everyday. i switched to egg whites and didnt eat any yolk for 2 months. ( not even once )
  • i started eating a bowl of oatmeal everyday.
  • i switched from full fat dairy to low-fat dairy.
  • i stopped eating fatty cuts of meat and poultry. i sticked with chicken breasts and lean ground beef.

i read a lot of studies advising that yolks dont increase LDL but its now scientifically proved that in my body it does.
[/quote]

Someone else may be able to interpret your results better.

Here is my take.

  1. Originally you had 262 total with 64 HDL and now you are around 170 and 54.

I don not think I would say that either one is better than the other. 262 with 64 HDL is already pretty good, but doctors focus on the 262. 170 and 54 is a good ratio but that cholesterol may be lower than optimal for health, given a good ratio.

  1. Triglycerides down. But they were not bad in the first place.

  2. LDL down from 170 to 110. This used to be considered a big improvement, but as I wrote before, it is the VLDL particles that are bad. They are smaller than the medium LDL particles. Eggs and saturated fat have been shown to make the VLDL particles larger so that they are no longer VLDL, but medium LDL particles. Since your HDL also dropped it makes sense that much of the reduction in LDL was a reduction in the size of the LDL particles which makes them “less” but worse.

But looking at your numbers in isolation I’d say that the HDL is good, the LDL is not diagnostic of anything by itself, and the total cholesterol may be a little low. Maybe its time to add back half of what you were having before.

One last thing as an add on. Did you say in an earlier thread that you ate low carbs <100 grams per day? I wondered because that has been suggested to reduce T3 hormone which also pushes up LDL. If you added a bowl of oatmeal to a previously low carb diet, you may have had low T3 and high LDL before, but improved the LDL just by adding some carbs and activating the thyroid. I’m just mentioning it because when you change 2 things, eliminating egg yolks AND adding oatmeal it may be hard to say that the whole eggs affected your LDL at all.

37

[quote]tontongg wrote:
Funny that OP gets great advices here but do the total opposite in order to fulfill an outdated and possibly dangerous chart.

On the other hand, and since english isn’t my native language, I have a few questions since google didnt help :

  • what are good sources of pectin and cellulose
  • are all grains to be strictly avoided?
  • rice is ok (in order to complete a high carb diet with lots of veggies and fruits), right ? I dont enjoy eating sweet potatoes too often (read that classic potatoes can be very bad for some intestinal cells’ membrans and junctions)
  • what would be a good probiotic cure ?[/quote]

i dont want to see anything in my bloodwork that is considered extremely riskful by the current medicine authorities and am very happy now.

38

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Gorillakiv83 wrote:
So, my new bloodwork results arrived.
My LDL dropped from 182 to 111, my total cholestrol dropped from 262 to 174 and my triglycerides dropped from 82 to 46.
You had advised me to check my tiroid hormones and they also came back perfectly fine.[/quote]

Did you make any changes though leading up to this test? [/quote]

yes.

  • i used to eat 2 whole eggs everyday. i switched to egg whites and didnt eat any yolk for 2 months. ( not even once )
  • i started eating a bowl of oatmeal everyday.
  • i switched from full fat dairy to low-fat dairy.
  • i stopped eating fatty cuts of meat and poultry. i sticked with chicken breasts and lean ground beef.

i read a lot of studies advising that yolks dont increase LDL but its now scientifically proved that in my body it does.
[/quote]

Someone else may be able to interpret your results better.

Here is my take.

  1. Originally you had 262 total with 64 HDL and now you are around 170 and 54.

I don not think I would say that either one is better than the other. 262 with 64 HDL is already pretty good, but doctors focus on the 262. 170 and 54 is a good ratio but that cholesterol may be lower than optimal for health, given a good ratio.

  1. Triglycerides down. But they were not bad in the first place.

  2. LDL down from 170 to 110. This used to be considered a big improvement, but as I wrote before, it is the VLDL particles that are bad. They are smaller than the medium LDL particles. Eggs and saturated fat have been shown to make the VLDL particles larger so that they are no longer VLDL, but medium LDL particles. Since your HDL also dropped it makes sense that much of the reduction in LDL was a reduction in the size of the LDL particles which makes them “less” but worse.

But looking at your numbers in isolation I’d say that the HDL is good, the LDL is not diagnostic of anything by itself, and the total cholesterol may be a little low. Maybe its time to add back half of what you were having before.

One last thing as an add on. Did you say in an earlier thread that you ate low carbs <100 grams per day? I wondered because that has been suggested to reduce T3 hormone which also pushes up LDL. If you added a bowl of oatmeal to a previously low carb diet, you may have had low T3 and high LDL before, but improved the LDL just by adding some carbs and activating the thyroid. I’m just mentioning it because when you change 2 things, eliminating egg yolks AND adding oatmeal it may be hard to say that the whole eggs affected your LDL at all. [/quote]

yes mert, thats my plan. i will start adding some whole eggs and occasional cheeseburgers to my life again. i will also add some full fat turkish cheese to my weekend breakfasts. i will find a happy medium and keep being tested every 6 months.

by the way, are you Turkish?

39

So why ask if you’re doing your own thing anyway ?

Mertdawg : I was talking about leaky gut syndrom (found the wording heh)
Some scientific research : Potato glycoalkaloids adversely affect intestinal permeability and aggravate inflammatory bowel disease - PubMed

40

[quote]tontongg wrote:
So why ask if you’re doing your own thing anyway ?

Mertdawg : I was talking about leaky gut syndrom (found the wording heh)
Some scientific research : Potato glycoalkaloids adversely affect intestinal permeability and aggravate inflammatory bowel disease - PubMed [/quote]

what would your game plan be if you had a 182 ldl and 262 total cholestrol?
im really curious.