Disappointing Blood Work

[shelley417]

I finished my first W30 in November. Since then I have been 98% compliant. An occasional drink. One ice cream cone. One night of hamburger and French fries. My diet is this:

Breakfast : 2eggs and black coffee.

Lunch: salad and protein. Oil and Vinegar

Dinner: generally make 2 recipes Paleo and eat them all week. Go out to dinner once or twice so maybe there are preservatives or something non-compliant.

I planned to do a second W30 in January. This week i had my physical.

Good news: I lost 16 lbs since last May (that's when I went low carb) and my blood pressure was 116/85. Lowest ever!!!

Bad news: my cholesterol went from 200 to 240. My fasting sugar went from 100 to 116 ( no-- I did not eat that ice cream cone the night before).

I was really disappointed. Now my doctor wants me to cut back on fat.

Any advice old be very helpful.

[jeepifer]

Weight loss can *temporarily* cause a rise in cholesterol, as your fat loss is released and eliminated through the bloodstream.

Also, what was the breakdown of the numbers, did they give you that? HDL? Triglycerides? LDL? If your HDL went up, that's a good thing! But when they "calculate" the total, it makes the entire number go up, which makes conventional docs freak out.

[Tom Denham]

When I did my first Whole30, my overall cholesterol went up, but my doctor was thrilled with the results because my triglycerides plunged. Personally, I am most focused on the triglycerides.

240 is not a bad cholesterol number. Doctors are brainwashed to think lower is better, but there is no evidence of that being true. I had a doctor who insisted on increasing my dose of Lipitor to get me down from 180 to 140. He was happy, but I found a new doctor. My new doctor said that a man my age (55) should be at 250 or lower. She gets her ideas from sources beyond the drug companies. Having said that, everything Jennifer said is right. Your numbers might be temporary.

When I was changing doctors last year, I stopped taking all cholesterol medicine for 3 months and mine went up to 300. My new doctor found that I have a genetic predisposition towards high cholesterol. The diagnosis comes from a simple blood test, but no doctor had ever told me about the issue before.

By the way, one of my favorite cholesterol related websites is http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/.

[shelley417]

Thanks to you both. I will get the details. I am on blood pressure medicine but not medicine for cholesterol. He did not recommend meds just reducing dietary fat. Do you think that dietary fat is related to cholesterol? I am going to read dr. Briffa.

What do you make of my sugar number???? I eat no sugar or starch or gluten --- other than squash, cauliflower and sweet potato.

[Renee Lee]

Shelley, were you definitely fasted for 8 hours? Honestly, the sugar number is odd.

I don't want to plunge into a whole conversation about cholesterol synthesis, but even though fat will/can increase serum cholesterol levels, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Cholesterol isn't the problem; risk of heart disease is, right? Fat intake is NOT associated with increased risk of heart disease

[Renee Lee]

Oh, additional resources would be Chris masterjohn and Peter attia. Both have blogs! Google

[melbournegirl]

My total cholesterol has gone up because my good fats have increased. My ratio is still very good and my triglycerides are really low so I will ignore any doctors who care about high cholesterol... The meds have also been proven to not reduce risk at all. Your body makes its own if it doesn't get what it needs from diet.. Overwhelming evidence now that it isn't directly related to health risk... Only indirectly in that some sick people get elevated cholesterol as a symptom of another disorder,