High Cholesterol and terrified! page

[Rattybag]

Just had my cholesterol results since eating primal and I am so shocked I burst into tears.
Ive looked in the archive for messages about cholesterol levels but I dont understand them as Im in the UK and we seem to have a different way of reading them that other countries.

In 2007 my serum levels were 4.7. Today it was 9.0!! My HDL is 2.19 mmol/L

What on earth can I do about this? I dont eat a huge amount of fat but it is from dairy, meat and coconut.
Why has this happened?

Im petrified!

[SleepyRoots]

Ok, I just plugged those into a converter.
That's 348 total cholesterol up from 181, and hdl is currently 84.

I am not an expert, but that definitely sounds worryingly high, and dare I say more than just diet high. Do you have your LDL and triglyceride numbers? On primal you should have relatively low triglycerides, which is good. If the bulk of your cholesterol is made up of LDL then there might be something fishy going on. I believe there are some people on this forum who have diseases that cause this. I hope they spot this thread.
This stuff can be genetic. Do you have any family history of hugely high cholesterol?

[Rattybag]

Thanks for your reply Sleepyroots. My triglyceride levels are 1.75 mmol/L
That has come back as high too.

Also, I thought HDL was meant to be high, but it states its too high.
Im terrified Im going to have aq heart attack any minute!

Im not keen on taking statins but I cant see any other solution. As far as I know, no other member of my family has crazily high cholesterol. I weight 142lbs so Im not enormously overweight. My sister is a big girl but her cholesterol is not as high as mine but she eats a 'normal' diet

[katemary]

Don't fret, read this to follow the numbers (Griff's cholesterol primer 2)

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread4723.html

[peril]

Your HDL is very good. However both trigs and LDL are high. This is a bad combination. You need to work on lowering the trigs. LDL is generally a bit of a mystery. It is not clear that high LDL by itself is a problem, but it definitely is with high trigs. High LDL can have genetic causes, dietary causes and is associated with hypothyroidism. Definitely get your thyroid tested before considering statins.

And eat clean paleo to lower the trigs. At the moment, you can't afford to cheat

[Rattybag]

Your HDL is very good. However both trigs and LDL are high. This is a bad combination. You need to work on lowering the trigs. LDL is generally a bit of a mystery. It is not clear that high LDL by itself is a problem, but it definitely is with high trigs. High LDL can have genetic causes, dietary causes and is associated with hypothyroidism. Definitely get your thyroid tested before considering statins.

And eat clean paleo to lower the trigs. At the moment, you can't afford to cheat

Im confused. (again!) I thought my HDL was really bad!
Also, I thought trigs were good things to have, such as MCT oil and coconut oil. Do I need to cut these out?

[KerryK]

I can understand that this is scary to you (I'd be alarmed too), but did you know that cholesterol can swing up or down substantially over a matter of days? The first thing to do is work on keeping calm for to fear itself is going to do you no good as you figure this out. I just got some very scary news on Friday and I could feel my body go into panic mode and it's been a real struggle to try and maintain calm.

The Griff link is fabulous... Also you will want to check out other paleo and health blogs/podcasts and read their info too in order to educate yourself. Hopefully others will chime in, but I really like Chris Kresser's cholesterol blogs and the podcasts he did on cholesterol with Chris Masterjohn. Blogs Heart Disease / Cholesterol He has TONS of links and info. I found pt 2 & pt 3 of his podcasts on cholesterol http://chriskresser.com/episode-16-c...disease-part-2. Chris Masterjohn on Cholesterol and Heart Disease (Part 3)

Could be you will need something to lower your cholesterol. But as many have pointed out in articles or blogs, high cholesterol is a symptom of something being wrong and not the actual problem itself. So hopefully you can read up on this and figure out, with your Doc, why this is happening. But truly, one test should NOT be the basis of a prescription. You should have at least another full panel done.

[lambchop]

What did your doctor say and suggest in reading the results?

[RitaRose]

I'm definitely not a cholesterol expert, but you do need to remember that high cholesterol is usually a sign that the body is repairing itself. I would investigate further, but it's not unusual for total cholesterol to go up a bit when you are fairly new to Primal.

High trigs are a little different. It was my understanding that they were tied in to carb consumption, so as you drop sugars, your trigs would drop too.

And all of this is under the assumption that you're genetically exactly the same as everyone else. Sometimes there are other factors.

[Hawkward]

You might take a look at these links where Paul Jaminet discusses some cases of paleo diets and high LDL. Don't know if it applies to you, but maybe worth a look.

Answer Day: What Causes High LDL on Low-Carb Paleo? | Perfect Health Diet

High LDL on Paleo Revisited: Low Carb & the Thyroid | Perfect Health Diet