Blood test after 3 months of Keto, High LDL, High Triglycerides! Why?! Help Plz!

#1

Hi All,

I started doing Keto 3 months ago and started freaking out when I got my blood test results back a few days ago because of the high Triglyceride level to HDL level and the high LDL level…There was a good ~15 hours before my last meal when I got the blood test. I had dinner at either 9/10pm, and my blood test was at ~12:40pm the next day. I only drank water in the morning.

based off of what Dr. Berg said in his video: Tri/HDL > 6 is bad, and LDL > 130 is bad. I started off at 183lbs and have been fairly consistent at 173lbs for the past month. The results don’t look good at all to me and I’m wondering why they’re so bad (assuming i’ve been doing this right, which I feel that I have). I feel like i’ve been watching very closely what i’m eating (using an app to keep macros and micros), and have kept up as best as i know how. I didn’t consult a dr or anyone before doing this diet, but i did a TON of research beforehand so i was prepared for all the symptoms, what to eat etc etc. I tried looking up for others with the same issue and found some posts, but none that really were the same as my situation or if they were close, the answers i read didn’t seem to apply to me or were off somewhat. Have others experienced similar results? Should I be worried and change something or not do this diet? Over the past month I started decreasing my dietary fat intake to have my body start using my body fat instead.

video to Dr Berg explanation: https://youtu.be/OBXOB3J3b6w

My blood test results:
Cholesterol Panel, Lipid panel, Lipid Profile (mg/dL)
Total Cholesterol: 431
HDL: 46
LDL: 322
Triglycerides 374

Blood Glucose Test, Blood Sugar Test (mg/Dl)
Glucose: 64

HbA1C: 4.8%

A bit about me:

  • 37.5 year old male, 5’ 8.5"
  • very active and healthy, have been fit/athletic for a long time - lots of sports, sprinting, running, activities, etc (maybe around 17% body fat?)
  • Lost 10lbs on keto over the past 3 months, feel better, no cravings etc.
  • started this diet to try to get more fit and lose that last bit of fat off my body, try to get more lean for better body composition

My diet:

  • 2-3 meals a day usually about 14-18hrs from dinner to next meal in the am.
  • fast 18-24hrs once ever week or two
  • 75% fat, 20%protein, 5% carbs (I use Carb Manaber and keep a strict regimen)
    • carbs are mostly from vegetables (bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, etc)
      Supplements:
      • I use Perfect Keto micros and take a little less than a scoop a day
      • NatureMade Multi for him no iron dietary supplement
      • omega-3 fish oil pill
      • Vitamin k2 (120mcg) and D3 (50mcg) pills
      • 400mg Magnesium before bed
      • sometimes use Cream of Tartar for potassium in my shake/drink
  • 95% of my foods are organic, grass finished, pasture raised, etc type of food.

Details of my meals:
1/2pm (different meals I’ll do…I try to do most of my fats for this meal):

  • bacon (try to use uncured and no sugar, but most of the time it’s cured w some kind of sugar i think), 3-4 eggs, mushrooms, spinach, ghee, sometimes a whole avocado
  • fat shake w ~100g of salad, MCT Oil, maca powder, apple cider vinegar, coconut milk (no caragennan), EVOO (anywhere from 1-8Tbsp, I adjust this based on whether or not i think i’ll have enough fat for the day so sometimes this is my main fat source)

7/8pm-ish (dinner where i try to get more greens and my proteins, again, different meals i’ll do):

  • Grass finished steak/meat (0.5-1lbs), some cruciferous veggies
  • sardines
  • some type of seafood

I drink a lot of water, I use Himilayan Pink Salt, I’ll sometimes snack on cheese sticks or goat/sheep cheese. Cut out most all dairy besides cheese sticks here and there, and I make myself different fat bombs here and there to eat.

EDIT: Also, I started looking at the daveKeto person and all the stuff he puts up. I kind of understand the idea that since i’m active i may have more LDL and Triglycerides that my body needs to transport and use for energy, but am stil worried since my levels seem so high…

(Duncan Kerridge) #2

My results were almost identical after 3 months. I freaked out a bit as well. 6 months later they were all fine. 3 months isn’t a long time for your body to change its metabolism.

(Marc Gagnon) #3

Hello there. Nice detailed write up of how you follow the lifestyle! Well I can relate on how your feeling because I have the same results as well and you and I are almost exactly practicing the lifestyle except ive been at it for 2 1/2 years and feeling some major frustration because of the numbers - especially the triglycerides being so high! No matter where i search I find nothing for answers on why my triglycerides are so high as yours are. Our numbers are very similar. I feel ok have reached my ideal weight skin great metabolism is on fire now no problems at all. Oh and I reversed my diabetes as well. But as you are scared because of the High triglycerides I am too. So I can relate! I dont have any answers for you sorry Ive been trying to get info on this for two years and nothing! If you check out Dave Feldmans information it may help but I still havent got an explanation. I can tell you that I have gone 0 carb for a bit and gave up bulletproof coffee and have decreased my fats substantially and increased my protein a bit. I have tried every possible way to prepare for the blood test and the out come always comes out the same. By the way my crp is 45. Good luck with your search and hope you nail it down.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #4

Check out this thread:
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/high-triglycerides-after-3-months/35040/9

#5

Thanks for the responses. I guess there’s some possible comfort in knowing that others have seen this…

@Duncan_K - was there any difference between the first 3 months, and the last 3 months in your eating habits/lifestyle? How about in the time before you did the bloodtests, did you do a proper 12-14 hour fast?

@ketosiskillsfat - thanks for the response…it’s frustrating and kinda freaky because it sounds like we’re being careful and responsible (researching what we’re doing etc and being conscious of our bodies) but the numbers don’t seem to add up or follow what the norm is. Some of the things i’ve been reading i wonder if it has to do with our genes or a deeper issue. I read things that if keto is making our cholesterol worse, perhaps it’s a possibility (that sucks) that we may issues with our bodies where it may be advisable to get off this diet or do another pseudo form of it…Some of the things i saw was there being the possibility of having

  • familial hypercholesterolemia
  • Hypothryoid related issues
  • chronic inflammation & stress issues

I don’t think I have chronic inflammation and stress, so i’m wondering about the first two…or if things really are as @Duncan_K suggest (for my case) and in another 3 months it will go away…even so, the numbers still worry me.

@collaroygal - I’m not sure how much that thread applies to me because my fast was not significantly over 14 hrs as she mentioned.

Do you know if the glucose and HbA1C levels are right?

Triglycerides pre/before Keto 513! ...today 3 months in
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

Yeah, your cholesterol numbers are wonky, especially your ratio of triglycerides to HDL, which should really be under 2.0, but your HbA1C is fantastic! You are definitely not diabetic or even pre-diabetic.

As has already been posted, it is normal to have wonky numbers at three months into this way of eating. Wait another three months before getting tested again. You should see a significant improvement. Also, LDL has not been shown to correlate with heart disease, and in some studies, higher LDL seems to be associated with lower disease risk, so you can pretty much ignore it. Do a search on YouTube for lectures on this topic by David Diamond, a neurophysiologist who had to deal with all this on a personal level, and who is now an expert on the so-called science behind the fear of cholesterol, especially LDL.

Dave Feldman, who runs www.cholesterolcode.com, has discovered that your cholesterol numbers are not as fixed as has commonly been believed, and that how you eat and how long you fast before the blood draw can have significant effects on the resulting numbers.

In any case, it is settled science that eating saturated fat will raise your level of HDL, and polyunsaturated fat can indeed lower LDL, but at the cost of increasing inflammatory markers if you have too much. So stick to butter, bacon grease, and lard for cooking, and use avocado, olive, or coconut oil for their healthier levels of polyunsaturated fats. Some of the vegetable oils on the market are unhealthily high in polyunsaturates.

(Duncan Kerridge) #7

I’ve eaten the same foods all the way through, although in the intial six months I was eating at a calorie deficit. I don’t count now. Both tests with a twelve hour fast before.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #8

Both are excellent.

If you were eating very low calories before the draw and or fasted longer than 14 hrs. no matter how much, the chol. numbers can be compromised. Also do you drink a lot of coffee, not decaf, regular? That can compromise your results as well. Another thing is coconut oil. I have cut way back on using that, I need to go in for more testing and I want to be off of it for atleast two weeks to see how that goes. I am not dealing with really high Chol. it is just up slightly from the 200 limit that drs. like to see. But my dr. is fine with my numbers, I am doing this for my own state of mind. I’d like to come in at 199 this go around.

#9

The day before the test I ate as I normally do every single day. My fast was for about 15 hours. I don’t drink coffee at all, I stick to mostly just water and about 1.5 cups of organic coconut milk every day or two in my shake. I used to do 1Tbsp of MCT oil in my first meal, but i stopped doing that as much the past few weeks. I think before I took the blood test i hadn’t had any MCT oil for a few days. I use grapeseed oil and don’t really use Coconut oil. I use a lot of butter from grass fed cows, or ghee from grass fed as well. I’ll try your suggestion and try to cut out coconut oil/fats.

Two thoughts / Changes I was thinking of doing:

  • According to perfectketo.com, triglycerides “They create fuel for your body to use not in the short-term, but in the future”. That would logically tell me that whatever I’m eating, my body is creating too much long term fuel, and the reason for that would be that i’m not using enough energy…basically eating too much and not using the fuel so it gets stored in my body as fat eventually? But I’m a pretty active person, so i’m somewhat reluctant to go with that reasoning but not entirely cutting it out. I play about 2-6 hours of sports a week (basketball, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, some jogging/body weight exercises). Would it make sense to say that perhaps I need to exercise more to burn those triglycerides up, or does it not work like that? I might try to increase my exercise routine so I’m exercising more?
  • gonna try to increase my salad greens intake - Dr. Berg recommends 7 cups a day…it’s a lot but i probably only have about 1-2 cups a day in my shake, along w a bit here and there to possibly help w free radicals etc?

I’m thinking of continuing and taking another test in 3 months, but perhaps whichever test it was that gives more insight into VLDL and the size of the LDL particles. I’m still worried about those 3 things tho, enough that I’m still considering stopping the lifestyle change. The Total Cholesterol seems super high, the LDL seems super high, and the Triglycerides seems ridiculously high. I’m starting to see a trend that people say not to worry about the total cholesterol, but more so the Triglycerides to HDL ratio, and the LDL particle size, would you agree with that?

@Ketosiskillsfat - I saw that you were taking another test recently (in another thread), how did that go this time around?

#10

Actually, another thought is that when you have higher triglycerides, doesn’t that also signal that you’re having too many carbs? If that’s the case, I’m quite confused as my diet is pretty strict, and I don’t see how I could have extra carbs anywhere…I cook most of my food from whole sources, the only carbs I should really have are from spices, vegetables, and nuts - all of which I track (or thought I was tracking)…

Based that thought off of the perfectketo website again:

"When your body breaks down carbs, some simple sugars are used quickly by your body for energy. Others cause an excess of sugar to build up in your bloodstream.

Your body then releases insulin to help that sugar get inside your cells and be used. But if your cells don’t need that energy (like if you’re on a Netflix binge), most of it will be converted to triglycerides, which will be stored as fat.

When your body breaks down carbs, some simple sugars are used quickly by your body for energy. Others cause an excess of sugar to build up in your bloodstream.

Your body then releases insulin to help that sugar get inside your cells and be used. But if your cells don’t need that energy (like if you’re on a Netflix binge), most of it will be converted to triglycerides, which will be stored as fat."

(Duncan Kerridge) #11

As I said earlier, I went through the same mental process you’re going through now - should I stop keto, these numbers are crazy, they’re going to kill me, etc. After reading around a bit I came to the conclusion that whatever’s going on I’ll give it a few more months until i’ve stopped losing weight and my body is completely used to my new diet. As an alternative if you started taking a statin now it would take 6-8 weeks to have an effect. The body doesn’t always move from condition A to condition B quickly.

Regardless of the weight loss I felt too good on keto to give it up easily. And nearly two years later that hasn’t changed.

(Marc Gagnon) #12

I have taken this approach on and gone more carnivore and bringing my fat down a little and bringing my protein up a bit and getting more activity in. Im at 90 G protein and aroynd 140 on fats and going by how i feel. Im thinking that im taking in way to much energy with my fats and having my protein too low. My meals averaged 1000 calories x2 plus a fat tea in the mornings.
Yes i just got my results that Posted earlier. They were much higher before i eased up on coconut oil. Quit coffee and fasted proper before the blood test.

#13

It’s been a month and i made some changes. I have to stop keto for 2 weeks in a few days because of an international trip i’m doing soon, so I got my bloodwork done w my yearly physical and just wanted to log my progress and get thoughts/feedback from the community if there was any. Trigs are better(!), cholesterol got even higher(?). Wondering if I am a hyper responder based on what Dave Feldman mentions in his website, or if I actually have Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH)…Glucose went up a tiny bit too(?). What do you guys think? I feel little better since Trigs are down and the Trig/HDL ratio looks good now…After I get back from my trip, i’ll plan to get a baseline test again and go from there to see what my cholesterol levels are when not on keto.

Also had a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel test and my Dr. said my liver looks healthy too. Is it possible I’m not creating enough bile though to help with the fat processing?

I kept a log of all the food i ate and the amounts as well every day.Since I’ve monitored my food intake with so much detail, why do you think my glucose level went up (even tho it was only by 9 mg/dL)? According to my logs, I have on average 15-20g of carbs a day.

Some notes since the first post here a month ago:

  • Food regimen same except the following notes
  • Weight stayed at pretty much 171 for the whole month
  • Took out all coconut oils
  • Increased salad/greens intake
  • Never got sick, exercised 3-4 days a week w long jogs, hiking, body weight exercises
  • All food since initial post has been organic/grass finished/wild caught/pasture raised.
  • Ate around 1500 calories worth a day, usually 2 meals
  • No more fat shake as mentioned in first post, just 3-4 cups of salad in a blender w water
  • organic ACV & Lemon juice in water every couple days

For the blood test I took:

  • Tried doing the Feldman Protocol and ate a high calorie Keto diet (high fat) 3 days beforehand (~2500+ calories…by this amount i was fairly full every day).
  • Water fasted exactly 13hours from the time of my last meal to the time they drew blood (8:30pm finished dinner, 9:30am blood drawn next day)
  • Bought a home blood test “CardioChek Home Basic Analyzer” from PTS Diagnostics on amazon to check. During blood draw at clinic, I asked the nurse to let me bleed out a bit and I collected blood at the same time as they drew my blood for their vials for their tests (freaked her out a bit when she let the blood flow out of my arm since no one had asked for that before haha). The Trigs and HDL were close, but the total Cholesterol was waaaay off…range of TC strips is 100-400mg/dL.
(mg/dL) 08/20/18 (Lab) 09/19/18 (Lab)

09/19/18 (Using CardioChek)
Total Chl 431 528 361 (very off from lab result!)
HDL 46 72 67
LDL (calc'd) 322 433 273 (off because of TC above)
Trigs 374 116 103
Glucose 64 75 N/A
(Heather~KWOL for life!) #14

It is absolutely possible that it could be genetic. I have been on meds since 2010, had my best results for those last week, so I am not sure if mine is genetic anymore (my egg donor has it … genetic) your Triglycerides at 103 are great though for 9/19.