First Post ( help with cholesterol! ) page

[SpearCarrier]

I will introduce myself shortly, I am in a bit of a rush.

Firstly, Hi everyone!!

Basically I eat a VERY high fat diet, most of my calories come from saturated fat and I have under 20g of carbs a day. I have many reasons for eating this way, I will explain in detail later when I have more time. I have basically beat ulcerative colitis by doing this and currently tackling M.E (low carb paleo helps A LOT).

My doctor just rung me and told me my cholesterol scores - he didn't tell me much and didn't like me asking questions. He basically told me that my cholesterol has gone up a lot since last time (about a year ago, before I started eating 250g+ of saturated fat a day)

These are my cholesterol scores: (what should I do?)
Total 6.8
LDL 4.7
HDL 1.5

Thanks for any help you can give me and sorry to be so abrupt!

[PHaselow]

So, in American terms:

Total cholesterol 263
LDL 181
HDL 58

Total cholesterol not a huge issue if other numbers were balanced. I'd want higher HDLs, personally (which means lower LDLs, too). Did you have a number for triglycerides? If those are low the total cholesterol is even less of an issue.

I'd be interested in further hearing why you are eating such huge quantities of saturated fat. What is your weight and activity level? Beating ulcerative colitis is no small feat.

~Pam

[SpearCarrier]

So, in American terms:

Total cholesterol 263
LDL 181
HDL 58

Total cholesterol not a huge issue if other numbers were balanced. I'd want higher HDLs, personally (which means lower LDLs, too). Did you have a number for triglycerides? If those are low the total cholesterol is even less of an issue.

I'd be interested in further hearing why you are eating such huge quantities of saturated fat. What is your weight and activity level? Beating ulcerative colitis is no small feat.

~Pam

Hi, thanks for the reply and thanks for converting my stats so that more people will understand it.

I didn't ask about triglycerides, I have social phobia and freeze when I talk to people in authority, although I am working on it and have seen some great improvement lately. When I next see my usual doctor (who is on maternity leave) I will ask a little more in-depth.

Once again I am in a rush which is a shame, been really busy so I will try to get on later and elaborate even more.

To beat my ulcerative colitis I modified the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) which excluded Almond flour (which they say to use for most of the recipes). Lucky enough, I eat to live and not the other way round so I didn't care about things getting bland and repetitive, that helped me a lot. I haven't got the brain power to truly learn the ins and outs of the human body but I spent years perfecting "what works" for colitis. Red meat is too hard on the stomach which is annoying as I follow most of the paleo principles.

This is what I ate during the first few months - it is similar to what I do now but without the chicken broth. I only ever eat between 12-8pm, incorporating intermittent fasting. I drink matcha green tea during the fast with a little coconut oil.

12pm: Raw sauerkraut for breakfast with a teaspoon of glutamine and wheatgrass in water. Cabbage heals the gut with it's elusive vitamin U and glutamine has been known to heal too.

1pm: Grass-fed ghee in dandelion coffee (don't tolerate caffeine well and don't care about the taste much lol). I add some bcaa powder

2pm: Organic Chicken Soup (boiled up with the bones)

3pm and 6pm: = the same.

7pm: Soup

8pm: Alaskan Salmon, organic chicken or King prawns with carrot + swede mash, or cauliflower cheese (organic)

This is practically what I do every day - if I get hungry then I throw some double concentrated tomato paste, cider vinegar, sea salt and a small bit of ghee in a mug and create a healthy tomato soup lol. I consider this as my only treat, it is REALLY nice.

I also have a wholefood multivitamin (alive!) and some powerful fish oil in the morning.

The ulcerative colitis vanished really quickly but the M.E is lingering. I used to exercise about 3 hours a day, all intense stuff, no cardio and slowly had to cut it out. I now have to really push myself to get some exercise done and generally suffer for a few days later - not just with delayed muscle onset soreness, but with crippling fatigue. Since sticking to this diet 100%, things have got 50% better - but the cholesterol is going the wrong way because of it.

I do not tolerate ANY starch which means sweet potatoes are out, which is why I need to eat so much fat. Complex carbohydrates feed the bad pathogens with UC. I have a small build, but some people say I look like bruce lee because of my muscular body - I have never held onto an ounce of fat. I want to keep this build, which is why I need to keep the calories up high.

Hope this clears up some of my insanity lol.

Once again, thanks for the reply.

[SpearCarrier]

Oh, I forgot to answer about my weight. Bearing in mind that I am pretty short, I weigh about 126 lbs right now. I was 154lbs pre-illness, ulcerative colitis knocked over 30lbs of hard-earned muscle off me in about 2 months and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has prevented me from lifting heavy enough to put it back on.

The exercise is very random, whatever my energy permits - I do a lot of bodyweight stuff, including one legged squats etc. For someone with crippling fatigue, I do a very good job of keeping active - I push through the fatigue a lot until I am unable to move and wait it out... and then repeat lol. I have stopped lifting heavy weights though as I don't want to damage my heart (heard it's bad on the heart to push through CFS/ME)

I'll attach a pic so you can see how low my bodyfat percentage is. Find it ridiculous that I have high cholesterol lol

[Misabi]

Yep, without your triglyceride figures it's hard to say.
Basically, your LDL was most likely not actually measured, just calculated from your measured trigs and HDL.
However if your measured trigs are under 100 then this throws out the calculation commonly used for LDL.

[magicmerl]

As everyone else has said, we need to know your Trigs. Don't worry about TC. Your doctor may be concerned but it's not a problem. Your LDL *is* high, but that is and of itself isn't a problem (although, again, to your doctor it probably is). If your Trigs/HDL ratio is good (low) then that indicates that your LDL is the 'good' kind. If it's high, then your LDL is the 'bad' kind.

Regardless of the outcome, the prescription is the same: Reduce carbohydrate consumption to decrease Trigs (which it sounds like you are already doing), and increase animal and dairy fats to increase HDL (which it sounds like you are already doing).

DON'T let your doctor talk you into a statin. Statins increase all cause mortality.

[SpearCarrier]

As everyone else has said, we need to know your Trigs. Don't worry about TC. Your doctor may be concerned but it's not a problem. Your LDL *is* high, but that is and of itself isn't a problem (although, again, to your doctor it probably is). If your Trigs/HDL ratio is good (low) then that indicates that your LDL is the 'good' kind. If it's high, then your LDL is the 'bad' kind.

Regardless of the outcome, the prescription is the same: Reduce carbohydrate consumption to decrease Trigs (which it sounds like you are already doing), and increase animal and dairy fats to increase HDL (which it sounds like you are already doing).

DON'T let your doctor talk you into a statin. Statins increase all cause mortality.

There is no way I would put statins in my body, they are evil - I already have problems with my ubiquinol levels I believe due to my afflictions. I wouldn't use ANY medication from a doctor, I literally go there for tests and advice - and if I don't like it, I just ignore it.

I have been reading about niacin - gonna start with 50mg in the morning before breakfast (not gonna take it with food because I enjoy the pain from niacin flushes lol) and then 50mg at night after dinner. This should help hopefully. I have also been looking into Red Yeast Rice, anyone know anything about this?

Thanks for the replies.