Low Carb Diet - Increased Blood Viscosity? page 2

[magicmerl]

Makes no sense if you are low carb for the problem to be all those triglycerides. Unless you have been also running low calorie and thus are supplying your energy needs with trigs out of your own fat stores, trigs in the blood are the result of carbs in the diet. They are not at all correlated with with dietary fat, which is transported via chylomicrons.

Yeah, whatever the cause it's not Serum Triglycerides. Those have gone down with primal.

Well I haven't looked at any studies in this regard but do you for some reason think this is a negative health factor? If so, why? To me it would seem that if your vascular elasticity (BP) is good and running consistent with your blood viscosity I wouldn't F with things. The more I know the more questions I have. At some points I just decide that "innate intelligence" knows what its doing.

High blood viscosity can strain the heart (since it has to pump harder to move the blood around) and is a clotting risk.

It's something that I'm interested in knowing more about.

[jpatti]

I've been testing my bG for years and years, and it got much thinner when I started on fish oil. So my guess would be one cause could be too much omega6, not enough omega3 in the diet.

[Sabine]

Very interesting thread to read. Does hydration affect blood viscosity? I've always thought of it doing so, but know nothing about the science of how it really works.

[AuroraB]

I believe that fish and fish oil have blood thinning capabilities. Some surgeons will pre-operatively discontinue a pt's fish oil caps along with all other oral blood thinners.
I have a genetic blood dyscrasia that makes me prone to blood clots and was told to take a baby aspirin every day for the rest of my life (yah, right...). Since being primal for nearly a year now, I notice a difference. It takes longer for me to get the bleeding stopped when I get a scrape, cut or injury.

[j3nn]

Perhaps thicker blood with good trigs is an evolutionary advantage. An injury and thin blood would cause more bleeding. I'd only be concerned if trigs were high, as well as high blood pressure. How is your iron level? Find out.

[Lewis]

I watched a video a while back by Dr MacDougall (he of the 'plant based diet' mantra), and one of the things he mentioned as an arguement in favour of eating carbohydrates instead of fat was that your blood run swiftly when you are eating carbs, and is sluggish and lethargic when eating a fat based cue.

What makes you think anything that swivel-eyed nutcase says has anything to do with science? He wouldn't know science if it bit him in the arse.

I gave blood last Friday as it happens and was up off the bed almost before I'd lain down. It took quite some time for some of the others but not me.

Eat some fish and shellfish, if you think you're blood's "sluggish". You should be eating them anyway:

Why should we eat more seafood to keep our brains healthy? · Food & nutrition · Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour

As for McDougall, I suggest he takes a very large dose of warfarin, and if it does something more permanent than thin his blood at least it will give us all a rest ...

[kap]

Here is a simple anecdotal response - no scientific references, n=1, etc.: I recently donated whole bood. My diet contains an average 60-70 g carbs/day. Moderate O3, little O6, lots of EVOO, butter, meat, eggs. When I donated the nurse was shocked how fast the blood flowed. I was in and out with pre-donation paperwork and post-donation waiting period in just a few minutes. Some people were on the "rack" when I arrived and were still on when I left. So in my own case, the diet was apparently no detriment to general blood viscosity...rather quite possibly a big benefit.

Kevin