Cholesterol - A Primer (Attempt 2) page 2

[Griff]

lbd: Ah, my bad. I figured walls=membranes.

[PrimalWannabeGirl]

When I was in Crossfit shape, my total cholesterol was 202 and my HDL was 100. My doctor not only told me that my cholesterol was 'borderline' high, he said that my HDL was too high. I said, "I didn't know it was possible for that to be too high" and he shrugged and said, "Yes, it is."


I dunno. He wanted to put me on statins because both my parents are on statins... "family history." (My parents have no heart disease and are in their 80s.)


I declined.


Griff, GREAT job and thank you!


Sooze

[maba]

Adding this to my favorites! Thanks Griff.

[DebFM]

Thanks, Griff! I had blood work done last month & my doc thought my cholestrol was too high. Now I can work some ratios & have some back-up when I see him in July. Thanks again!

[Tara tootie]

Griff you rock!

[Nekurahn]

Thank you, Griff. That's quite the reference article you've put together. /cheer

[stop_hammertime]

Have any of you tried to have the HDL/Trigs conversation with your doctors when they try to put you on statins?


I would imagine they are not very open to the idea....

[Griff]

Oh, my doctor hates me because I won't listen to him about my cholesterol results. *laugh*

[OnTheBayou]

Well, while I'm over at v. 1 of this post wondering why so few comments, I later find the party is over here. (Your long post seems to have worked just fine, Griff.)


Since my comments were so important, I'm reposting. Yes, I'm joking.....


Great work! I'm cutting this out and pasting to a word document for saving. BTW, my blood stats done last fall certainly show the ravages of a high fat diet! (Snark)


Trig/HDL: 1.8 slightly better than ideal

Total/HDL: 3.2 about 60% of ideal

LDL/HDL: 1.9 less than half of typical


As I've said to others, it's too bad I don't believe in the lipid hypothesis of HD since my total is 174, about 40 points lower than when checked some years ago.


Darned artery clogging saturated fats! My ratios indicate that I should eat more carbs. Right?


1. Looking at your reference above http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664115/ , here is the damning conclusion about Trig/HDL ratios: "Nearly all routinely assessed lipid variables were associated with the extent of coronary disease, but only the ratio of triglycerides to HDL-cholesterol or to HDL-c were robustly associated with disease extent. Elevation in the ratio of TG to HDL-c was the single most powerful predictor of extensive coronary heart disease among all the lipid variables examined."


2. So I guess with my TG/HDL ratio I can stop obsessing about insulin insensitivity? Do you have a link about that?

[stop_hammertime]

Griff- Good job on not listening to your doctor. I thankfully have a great one that said once "you know what, I think we are all (doctors) full of sh*t, I don't know if anything we do makes a difference."


Of course I am pulling that from memory but that was the basic gist of it.


Side note: When I was a nurses aide in a nursing home, we would often have patients we believed were dying. We would put them on hospice care and then discontinue all meds (usually 20+) that weren't anxiety or pain related. You would not believe how many people perked right up and lived long past my leaving the job.