I Didn't Have "A Genetic Problem" - I Had A Diet Problem

 Photo Credit: Luca Rossato via Compfight

After 45 days of eating a diet consisting mostly of meats, fruits, vegetables, and some dairy (full fat Greek yoghurt), I got my blood tested.

I had gone off the statin (Crestor 5mg - considered a small dose) a week earlier, so I should have been relatively statin-free when the blood was drawn.

Since I became vegetarian in 1996, I always had an issue with very low HDL Cholesterol. We tried everything to get it up - and finally the best results were had by a very high dose of niacin (2g/day). This got my HDL numbers into the "low acceptable" range of 1.2 mmol/l.

The Crestor did a good job of reducing total cholesterol and LDL - both numbers were very good by the metrics I used to use.

So here are the new numbers:

• Total Cholesterol - was 3.0 to 4.0, now is 4.8
• LDL Cholesterol - was 0.8 to 1.7, now is 2.5
• HDL Cholesterol - was 0.8 to 1.2, now is 1.8
• Triglycerides - was 1.0 to 2.4, now is 1.0

The only number that's a bit confusing for me is Fasting Blood Sugar - I only had it measured one other time at 5.0, and now it's 5.5. I'll have to do some digging to see what that's all about - it could be the result of all that statin use.

So the results are exactly what they said they would be:

• Total Cholesterol and LDL would go up - but these two numbers are meaningless
• HDL would go up - this is a minimum 50% increase in HDL which is fantastic
• Triglycerides would go down - it's now as low as it has ever been

I'm really quite impressed. I thought that I had a genetic problem with low HDL. No, I had a diet problem with low HDL!

Note that low HDL combined with high triglycerides is now the premier predictor of heart disease and arterial damage. This is from the National Institutes of Health in the USA:

"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."

The ideal ratio of Triglycerides/HDL is less than 2.0. The lower your number, the lower your risk. With very low HDL, my number was always high. Now it's 0.56.

Seems I've been killing myself over the last sixteen years. And I only took medicine's advice....


Addendum: I checked with a group I know on-line about the Fasting Blood Sugar - it's no issue at all. Low carb diets cause it. So does statin use. I should wait to see what it does in three months.


* Note: I've reposted this over on my Paleo blog, because it's only with this new lifestyle/diet that I've been able to achieve this in such a short time.