Kim Christensen Posted January 18, 2013 Share Posted January 18, 2013 I'll be honest and I say that for myself I don't really care about cholesterol. I am feeling great on my Whole30 and plan to eat this way, or 98% this way, forever at this point. BUT my husband's mother has horrible cholesterol, believes her problem to be 100% genetic (we won't get into her being an ex Jenny Craig consultant so she eats SUPER low fat all the time), and therefor has poked and prodded my husband about it to the point that he cares about his cholesterol. After the first time he got it tested, I begged and pleaded for him not to take the meds and that I would help him get it down. Okay so he just got his test results back. His cholesterol is much better, but he wants it to be great. The problem is that despite reading online I am not 100% confident that I know what these numbers mean and how they relate to diet. Anyone up for explaining it for me? Cholesterol - 145 (range 20-200) HDL - 35 (range 40-90) LDL - 94 (range 1-100) Triglycerides - 80 (range 50-150) I KNOW him and he won't be happy with HDL being low and LDL being on the high side even if he doesn't know what they mean HA! He won't be back until the weekend so if I can understand them before he really gets a look at the results, that would be great, Thanks guys!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renee Lee Posted January 18, 2013 Share Posted January 18, 2013 Wait, you got it to this number without meds?! 145 is fine! Borderline low, IMO, but nobody should be concerned about these numbers. His hdl could be higher, but that's probably because his total is so low. Eating more saturated animal days will help bump that number up, but his total will increase as well. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but just a fair warning. I'd have him go over these result with his doc and see what his thoughts are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Christensen Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 Thanks. Yeah he went from high down to those number without meds. I just started lowering carbs from our meals, making most of the family meals paleo, he started losing weight as a result, and MAGIC, what I told him would happen, did. His cholesterol is better. Okay thanks. I will talk to him about it. He will want to only see low HDL and higher LDL but I will do more reading this weekend and understand them both so we can have an intelligent discussion. He has some stomach acid issues that have gone WAY down since changing his diet but not all the way, so maybe I can convince him to eat all the way like I do. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan W Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Kim, that is so fabulous. You just need to present it in a way that he gets why it's good news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharon Simpson Thumann Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Good luck Kim! I refused to take any sort of meds from my Doctor and he understood. I already take enough as is.. My Cholesterol used to be high 180's and is now 170 and my HDL used to be 30 but is now 39. He insists on getting the HDL up and I am working on it! Awesome numbers for your husband! If you need reinforcement just send him here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Christensen Posted January 20, 2013 Author Share Posted January 20, 2013 So how do we being the LDL number down or should we? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renee Lee Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 You don't. It's fine!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Christensen Posted January 20, 2013 Author Share Posted January 20, 2013 Awesome thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 Don't worry about the LDL, that is normal for him. High normal is still normal. The HDL is to low, and that is what you should be focusing on. You can raise the HDL by eating healthy fats and supplementing with fish oil caps. Google "cholesterol ratio calculator". Ratios are what supposedly calculate a person's risk for heart disease. For him, again it looks like the low HDL will be the problem. My total is higher than your husbands, I'm 218. My other levels are similar though. My HDL dropped when I was consciously eating a lower fat diet, thinking my total would drop. Which it did, but only because my HDL dropped. At that point my doctor told me to stop worrying about eating fat, and to stop eating refined carbs. She told me LDL takes a little longer to see the numbers drop. This was the firs time I heard of this information, so it was difficult to wrap my head around. The more I researched, the more information I found to support this new info. Eventually I read ISWF and ended up here. Everything clicked. I do believe that is is important if a person had cholesterol issues to watch what kind of meat they are eating, though. It makes sense to avoid standard factory farmed meat that is high in Omega 6 fats. I could be totally wrong, but I feel like if there is a stronger genetic predisposition for higher cholesterol then supplements alone may not be able to overcome poor food choices, such as poor quality meat. But that's just my own anecdotal thought process. I'm interested to hear how it works out for him in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Christensen Posted January 20, 2013 Author Share Posted January 20, 2013 Thanks. I'm going to try and move him more paleo with me and focus on keeping his good fats up. I'm trying to fit a good time for him at our box and see if we can get his HDL up. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SassieM Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 I am so happy to hear of your success Kim..celebrating that:-) BTW, I found out recently that Vitaminc C acts as an HMG Co A reductase inhibitor naturally (thats what the statin medication does) ..so with all the extra fresh, real vegetables this is another reason why this style of eating may be beneficial for helping to normalise cholesterol. The fresher the vegetables the more Vitamin C - raw is best as it is water soluble and reduced by boiling/heating. Also coconut oil helps..just add that to the list of hundreds of benefits of coconut oil!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delaine Ross Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 If it helps, the documentary "Fathead" does a good job of explaining in an elementary way that eating cholesterol doesn't cause high cholesterol - that inflammation does. It's a great resource for people who think eating fat makes you fat, I just wish it had been done with better food sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
praxisproject Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 There are some fantastic podcasts about cholesterol on Ask the Low Carb Experts. Some of the experts recommend more specific tests if you have concerns (family history, etc). It seems a lot of the standard tests in the USA do not include the most valuable data (particle count, size, etc). For those folks looking to up Vitamin C, peppers (capsicums) are absolutely loaded with it. Green is the highest, then red, not sure about yellow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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