Low carb diet & cholesterol

Thanks in large part to the influence of GeorgeN I switched from a low fat diet to a low carbohydrate-high fat.

Just in case anyone still harbors the myth about fats causing coronary artery disease, I offer my prediet and most recent cholesterol results

Prediet HDL 59 LDL 122 TriG 46

Most recent HDL 128 LDL 99 TriG 28


Josiah

Josiah,

I received my Lipid level test today, and was shocked at how high my total cholesterol, and my LDL levels were. My levels are so much higher now, then 2 years ago, and I have worked so much harder at reducing fat. I do almost everything "modern medicine" percribes you should do to lower cholesterol.

Please tell me about your diet.

Thank you,

Valli

Valli- The mindgames one plays when entertaining a radically different approach towards nutrition are quite something. I've followed the Afibbers forum for close to five years and during that period I read but pretty much ignored the frequent posts about Paleo diets and the downside of carbohydrates. I continued to believe what I had heard for years from so many "reliable" sources that fat particularly saturated fat was really bad for you.

Eventually concern about insulin resistance caused me to read thru GeorgeN's posts in Conference room #73 and eventually I became a convert to low carbohydrate diets which I've been following since August.

The diet I follow provides about 75% of my calories as fat, 20% as protein and 5% as carbohydrate. Fortunately I'm not a "foodie" and haven't been bothered by the significant deprivation that giving up carbohydrates entails.

Most converts to a low carb diet are not motivated by concern about their cholesterol, but the literature clearly shows that people who switch to low-carb see some improvement in their lipid scores. I was just surprised at how remarkable my own numbers were.

Josiah

Thanks Josiah. I will check out CR #73

Josiah,

How long were you on your diet before seeing these results?

I tried Atkins years ago and it made me sick, but I continued and lost 15 pounds in a short period of time. It's hard to get my head around eating
fat as my diet is fruit & veggies, and I love those carbs!

Valli,

There was about 5 months between my prediet lipid test and my most recent test results.

I agree that going low carb demands a whole lot of motivation and there's no guarantee that low carb will significantly lower your numbers. I think my results are unusual. I started the thread primarily to demonstrate that a high fat diet would not make your lipid results worse.

You might well Google around a bit and try some some less drastic regimens.
Your numbers really aren't that bad...your total cholesterol is high primarily because your HDL (the good stuff) is quite high. I don't think total cholesterol is taken seriously any more. You might arrange to get a VAP cholesterol test so you can see what kind of LDL particles you have.

Josiah