Do you have muscles? If so, what's your LDL?

(Bob M) #1

Saw this on Dave Feldman’s Cholesterol Code.com:

I believe Dave’s theory is that if you are or become lean and exercise a lot, you will become a LMHR (lean mass hyper-responder), meaning you’re going to have high LDL and TC due to need energy to be be shuttled about by lipoproteins.

The issue is that a lot of (lean) muscular people don’t fit this pattern. While I am not “lean” by any stretch, and I am muscular. I was a pseudo-bodybuilder in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. Even after many injuries and switching to body weight exercises, I’m still muscular.

And my LDL and TC are “low”.

This seems to fit with Dave’s resistance training experiment, where he lowered his LDL by quite a bit.

If you are muscular, what are your TC and LDL?

Mine are highly variable, but around 170-180 total and 100-110 LDL.

(Erin Macfarland ) #2

One caveat is that LMHR usually have a family history of hypercholesterolemia, so their numbers are exceptionally high…someone correct me if I’m wrong!! I am a LMHR myself and I do have familial hypercholesterolemia, and I have LOTS of lean body mass/skeletal muscle and lower body fat levels for my size. I’m a personal trainer and I have access to an Inbody (not necessarily because it’s accurate but it’s helpful to give people an idea of where they’re at in relation to body composition…) my TC is 389, LDL 274, HDL 128, trigs are 38, if that helps at all! I am a runner mostly but do some functional strength training mostly with TRX or sometimes free weights

#3

Funny enough I can’t read the article because I’m all pre-workout’d up and ready to head to the gym, but since I’ve been putting muscle back on over the last year I have noticed my LDL consistently creeping up again, at last check it was back over 150, however I’m not lean and muscular. My body is built like it want’s me to be a power lifter, to clarify, not a fat guy with a big beard and a man bun :laughing: But out of my average 215lbs at last scan 190 of it was muscle. So not sure if that applies to me or not.

(Jenna Ericson) #4

This is interesting! So it sounds like the reason Dave Feldman was doing this experiment is because he was wondering why “many keto bodybuilders will have lower LDL-C/-P than their runner/yoga/cardio counterparts”. He hypothesized that “resistance training reduces LDL cholesterol due to higher endocytosis of LDL particles by non-hepatic tissues, this includes skeletal muscle for growth and repair." I think that means that muscle cells actually trap LDL in them (therefore less would be floating around in the blood) as they grow and repair after resistance training.

What was immediately interesting to me was that when Dave did this experiment on himself his LDL, etc. only dropped for the 3 or 4 days after the addition of one session of resistance training, then they went back to normal. Also, after the second session of resistance training 4 days after the first, his LDL again dipped, but by the end of the experiment his cholesterol numbers actually all went up a little bit.

What I think this means is that adding a mild to moderate amount of resistance training to your routine will not necessarily lower your LDL significantly, because it will most likely raise back up to normal levels in between workouts. You might even raise your LDL overtime due to your body getting more efficient at compensating for the depletion of LDL as it is trapped in muscle cells while repair is taking place. I could see where if you were a body builder and consistently, hardcore storing LDL in your muslces, you might see a more consistently lower level of LDL in the blood.

This stuff is interesting to me because I’ve been thinking about doing an n=1 where I try to make myself a hyper-responder, but haven’t gotten around to going to a doctor and getting blood work.

(Bunny) #5

I wonder how all these hyper-responders cholesterol blood work would look if they carbed up for 5 days or more before the test? (same with OGTT and related or oral glucose tolerance test?)

And later did another test with there regular keto diet or what have you?

I would do the opposite before a blood test to contrast or compare the two tests?

Fasting and non-fasting C-Reactive Protein levels seem to be the golden standard at predicting heart disease risk along with a CAC.

It would be nice to know if anyone has tried this?

Footnotes:

[1] “…Diet composition of the weight loss diet influenced a key marker of inflammation in that LC increased while HC reduced serum CRP but evidence did not support that this was related to oxidative stress …’ …More

[2] Consuming a hypocaloric high fat low carbohydrate diet for 12 weeks lowers C-reactive protein, and raises serum adiponectin and high density lipoprotein-cholesterol in obese subjects

[3] Here are the numbers to know:

  • hs-CRP above 3.0 = High Risk
  • hs-CRP between 1.0-3.0 = Average Risk
  • hw-CRP below 1.0 = Low Risk …More
(Jenna Ericson) #6

That would be interesting to see. I assume that their LDL would go down some with the carb up because they would have replenished glycogen, but I don’t think it would be as low as non-hyper-responders.

(charlie3) #7

I’ve been low carb and exercising for 2 years. I do plenty of cardio and I do all the lifting I can benefit from which amounts to about 90 minutes a week or 40 sets more or less. My HDL to triglycerides ratio is better than ideal, my LDL is crazy high as of last April. I believe my body fat percentage is around 13.4%. I’m 157 pounds and 71 years old. I have enough muscle head to toe that it’s noticeable. I’m certainly no bodybuilder.

When I learned about having a super high LDL I had to wonder how this can be such a rare thing. Millions of cholesterol tests have been done for decades. How can this have never occured in the past, and if it does go back in time where are the records of that?