Changes in my Cholesterol

(Mark Humphreys) #1

So back before Keto my total cholesterol was 3 mmol/L, after 10 months of Keto my total cholesterol is 11 mmol/L. I have dropped 15kg or 33lb and am training harder than ever (9-16 hours per week) depending on the program being undertaken.
I am 55 so the recommendation is daily statins, what are your thoughts or guidance?

#2

How are you eating? Are you eating per a set program and tracking your intake, or are you pouring grease and fat down your face at every meal? There’s a chance you’re a hyper responder given that when you started it was too low, but probably just the way you’re eating. If you’re not tracking your intake, I’d start. Going to be impossible to troubleshoot if you’re not.

(bulkbiker) #3

Do you have your ratios/lipid breakdown and was the blood taken after a 12-14 hour fast?

(Joey) #4

Along with knowing more about your eating, to address whether you’re a lean mass hyper-responder (LMHR) it’d also be helpful to know more about your current physical condition (congratulations on losing 15kg! … and now you’re down to ___kg? Your height, BMI, something to better understand your physique?). And what is this “training” all about?

Being a LMHR myself I can offer some thoughts, but it’s not clear that’s your issue without knowing more about your lipid profile - e.g., particle counts from an NMR lipid panel would be helpful.

But to answer your direct request for thoughts/guidance on daily statins, here’s what has driven my own personal view of this…

StatinAdherence-CVD.pdf (413.4 KB)

For your convenience, I’ve highlighted the most relevant passages.

(Tracy) #5

My cholesterol skyrocketed but according to my ratios and NMR it’s all healthy, fluffy particles. I still have anxiety about it being so high. I was on a statin and went off on my own after realizing all the horrible side effects it was causing. Not many fellow ketoers will agree with what I do, but I have stopped eating 9 eggs a day and only have 2. I also no longer use HWC, lots of butter, or too much cheese. I want to see what my ratios look like at my next lipid test after eating eating this way and being off a statin. The foods I eat already have enough fat to satiate me. I’ve never understood why people are eating fat bombs as a supplement. I usually eat 4 pieces of bacon, 2 eggs and half and avocado for breakfast. I don’t need to put HWC and coconut oil in my coffee to get more fat.

(Joey) #6

@kyarn FWIW, here’s a fellow ketoer who fully agrees with what you do! :vulcan_salute:

(Mark Humphreys) #7

Thanks for the response
I record everything I eat using myfitnesspal. the ratios I maintain are 75% Fat, 20% Protein and 5% carbohydrates. I am rarely not exactly on these targets, hardly any processed food and my sweet tooth is soothed by stevia in my green cola.

#8

I’d go by grams and not percentage, many people can’t eat a diet of mostly fat (including keto) and get away with it either with cholesterol levels or fat loss. Ketosis is from lack of carbs not from large amounts of fat. I’d dial back the fat, like a lot. Even when my keto is strict I try not to go much over 100g/day. If I don’t fat loss isn’t going to happen and my cholesterol sucks.

(Mark Humphreys) #9

Thanks for the response, I read the Statins piece with some dread. I am 1.83m tall and weigh 84kg with 11% body fat, that does give a a BMI of 25 but with my muscle mass that doesn’t really fit for me. I would say I am athletic, I run and cycle, I am lucky that I have my own Watt Bike and always follow one of their structured programs as I don’t feel comfortable with my gym yet and local lockdowns are keeping me from my favourite cycle routes. I will see about more data from my cholesterol testing and post that when I receive it.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

The matter of cholesterol is a thorny one. There is actually no scientific evidence to show that cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease, and plenty to show that it does not.

At best, all that can be said is that cholesterol levels may possibly say something about your cardiovascular risk. And the most reliable indicator, apparently, is the ratio of triglycerides to HDL which, in the units used in your country, should be less than 0.9 (less than 2.0 in U.S. measurments). For the most accurate available assessment of your cardiovascular risk, ask your physician for a coronary arterial calcium (CAC) scan.

For information about lean-mass hyper-responders and cholesterol, take a look at Dave Feldman’s Web site, www.cholesterolcode.com. It has a great deal of useful information.

As far as taking a stain is concerned, you should know that there is a group of internationally-respected scientists that call themselves the International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics (THINCS). The fact that they are internationally respected does not necessarily make them right, but I happen to believe they make a compelling case. The counter-arguments are produced by a team at Oxford, headed by Professor Sir Rory Collins. This group is funded largely by donations from pharmaceutical companies and has exclusive access to data from safety trials conducted by the statin manufacturers, data which they are under quite a bit of criticism for refusing to share. The middle ground is taken by people such as the noted British cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who feels that the side effects of statins often warrant de-prescribing them, but that they have their uses if prescribed appropriately.

(Tracy) #11

For entertainment purposes only, I sometimes join “keto” FB groups and hang around for about a week, then leave right before I start getting death threats for stating facts that they can’t handle. Everyone thinks Keto means eating fat bombs. They advise newbies to drink 20oz of heavy whipping cream at coffee shops to make their mocha Keto. I’ve calculated my macros and even by not adding additional fat, I easily go over what I’m advised to have based on my age, height, weight, and very active exercise level.

(Bob M) #12

You know, I don’t really give a crap what you eat, but when you start denigrating people, I can’t take it.

Let me know when you find the scientific evidence to support your lack of fat and that fat is somehow bad for you. Tell me those “facts they can’t handle”.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now, if you want to say that you personally have tried higher fat (and be specific about exactly which fats you eat), and it did not work for some reason, I have no trouble with that.

But when you say “I have stopped eating 9 eggs a day and only have 2” as if this means something, you should put your money where your mouth is. Why is this meaningful? Why is eating 9 eggs a day bad and eating 2 somehow better?

While I’m not a huge fan of high fat, I ate high fat for a LOOOONG time, and got a zero score on CAC. So, if “high fat” causes CAD, it doesn’t for me, at least by this metric.

(Tracy) #13

The facts they can’t handle are you can’t eat a bag of sugar-free peanut butter cups that are sweetened with Maltitol. Making sugar-free pudding with HWC does not make it keto. Those are some of the facts they can’t handle.

As in several other threads I have mentioned that I’m wanting to see what happens to my cholesterol after going off a statin and reducing my egg, HWC, butter, and cheese consumption. I’ve never said fat causes or doesn’t cause CVD. It’s meaningful to me because if I reduce those foods and my cholesterol goes down, I think those foods could be a contributor to my high cholesterol. I won’t know until my next blood draw.

I’ve used a macro calculator and without putting additional fat like butter or coconut oil in my food, the foods I already eat have plenty of fat. The whole point I was making was all the misinformation about Keto. I often hear “Keto is ALL about the fat”.

(Joey) #14

Part of the issue is the questions as to whether your concern over your cholesterol being higher is a “healthy” concern.

Higher cholesterol (HDL especially) might actually be a good thing, not a bad thing. Much of the confusion hinges on particles. That’s the challenge we face given the “dueling science” out there and associated conflicting expert opinions.

In short, for some of us (LMHR?), higher cholesterol might signify a healthy phenomenon.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Not only is there no evidence to show that cholesterol causes cardiovascular disease, there is plenty of evidence to show that it does not.

For example, several large, well-funded epidemiological studies (MRFIT, the Women’s Health Initiative, the Minnesota Coronary study, the Nurses’ study, the Framingham study, among others) have either failed to show any correlation between cholesterol level and CVD risk, or have shown a negative correlation. Now, a positive correlation between thing A and thing B is by no means proof that A causes B, but a negative correlation is sufficient proof that A does not cause B.

Another intriguing fact is that well over half of patients presenting in the emergency room with their first heart attack have normal or low cholesterol. And about half of the people with familial hypercholesterolaemia never develop cardiovascular disease, fail to die from heart attacks, and live to perfectly normal ages and die of other causes. The half who do develop cardiovascular problems all just happen (quite coincidentally, no doubt) to have genetic variants of fibrinogen and clotting factor VIII that make their blood much likelier to clot.

Not only that, but the more I learn about the role cholesterol plays in the immune system, about its role in maintaining the integrity of our cell walls, and about its role as the precursor to several important hormones (vitamin D and testosterone being the two I care about most), the less inclination I have to inhibit my body from producing as much cholesterol as it wants to produce.