So, my employer once a year does a wellness event and you get free blood work done. Decided to do it for the first time. Background: been Keto almost 6 weeks. Down 22 lbs and dropping. 5’10, 233lbs, 37 years old. Here are my results. No doctor went over them so if anyone has insight I’d appreciate it.
Glucose: 105
Cholesterol/HDL Ratio: 5.0
HDL Cholesterol: 37
Triglycerides: 98
LDL Cholesterol: 129
Total Cholesterol: 186
Thanks in advance.
What helped me understand my numbers when I got my first keto bloodwork done was this:
Plug in your numbers and it helps understand what they all mean.
Your glucose is a bit high, and your ratio of triglycerides to HDL is, too (you want it under 2.0). But for six weeks in, not bad! Wait till you’ve been keto for six months; by then your numbers should have stabilized. If anyone from work talks to you about these numbers, just tell them that you recently switched to a healthier diet, so you need some time to see what the effect will be.
I clicked on the link, plugged in very recent numbers. The modern analysis is more optimistic than the traditional. I’m not going to start taking a statin as the doc wants, at least not until I’ve done some research and experimenting to see what it takes to lower the high LDL number (even though I doubt that LDL is causing problems).
=== CholesterolCode.com/Report v0.9.3 ====–
14 months on LCHF (20g to 120g carbs); 12 hours water fasted…
Total Cholesterol 808 mg/dL|20.89 mmol/L
LDL Cholesterol 699 mg/dL|18.08 mmol/L
HDL Cholesterol 91 mg/dL|2.35 mmol/L
Triglycerides 92 mg/dL|1.04 mmol/L|
–CHOLESTEROL REMNANTS–
|Remnant Cholesterol 18 mg/dL|0.47 mmol/L; Medium-Low Risk Quintile|
|Remnant Chol to HDL 0.2 Lowest Risk Quintile|
Go to https://tinyurl.com/y84u92wm for more on Cholesterol Remnants
–ATHEROGENIC INDEX OF PLASMA (AIP)–
AIP: -0.354 Lowest Risk Third
Go to https://tinyurl.com/ycccmmnx for more on Atherogenic Index of Plasma
–CONVENTIONAL MARKERS AND RATIOS–
Friedewald LDL-C: 699 | Iranian LDL-C: 607
Total/HDL Ratio: 8.88
TG/HDL Ratio in mg/dL: 1.01 | in mmol/L: 0.44
Thanks for the reassurance but I need to reassure myself about the crazy LDL number. Tomorrow is a doc’s appointment where I’ll get pressure to take a statan. My response will be, not yet. I’ll get a cholestral test in a few weeks to see if the 699 was a spike. If it is dramatically lower I’ll leave diet alone and test a month later. If the next test is still high I’ll reduce saturated fat for a month and test again. Currently I’m 40 net carbs keto. (All the carbs come from non starchy veggies.) Fats come from eggs, cheese, whipping cream, salmon, and beef. I don’t know what I’d put in their place.
I burn 1000 extra calories a day by an hour of brisk walking, an hour of SS cardio and 30 minutes of lifting 3 days a week. I suspect the exercise has more influence on blood markers than my diet.
Charlie
If either you or your dr are worried about CVD, why not ask him to get you a CAC scan. Then you’ll both know and have some real evidence of whether you have anything wrong that needs drugs?
Would another option be to do the test that counts the large and small LDL particles?
Two years ago I was given pills for cholesteral and blood pressure. I took them for a while. When I started weight training I decided the cholesteral drug was interferring and stopped it. I also decided to lower blood pressure the old fashioned way, aerobic exercise, without pills, which worked. Do doctors want us on drugs simply to keep us dependent on them?
So I can eat carbs and die of T2D, or I can eat low carb high fat and die of a heart attack–?? If low carb plus high activity (what I do) was so dangerous and unhealthy natural selection would have weeded that out a million years ago.
My opinion is that they want us on drugs because this is their best way to control fixing the problem. I think 99.9% of drs genuinely want to fix whatever problem they see, but they have very very limited weapons. Most I think just don’t trust their patients to abide by lifestyle instructions/advice.
Exactly.
So this is what I don’t believe… high LDL is NOT a good marker for CVD. A high CAC scan score is.
Follow the money. But although the doctor may feel bound to prescribe a statin, you are not required to fill the prescription.
You got that right! 
Be sure to watch that video of David Diamond, in which he sums up the evidence that LDL (indeed any form of cholesterol) has nothing to do with heart disease, demolishes the statistical shenanigans used to “prove” that statins prevent heart attacks, and proposes an alternative mechanism for what really causes cardiovascular disease. He’s pretty convincing.
I believe the companies that make statins put a great deal of pressure on the system to encourage doctors to push them so that they will make more money. The doctors that don’t push them are accused of not doing their job if they decline to do so. And apparently they also can receive kickbacks for statin prescriptions:
Of the 2,444 doctors in the Medicare prescribing database, almost 37 percent received industry payments.
If you watch the video that @PaulL posted you will see how statin success rates are grossly exaggerated through a deceptive math forumal called relative risk reduction. The true reduction of cardiovascular event is a whopping 1% if you take statins and you can bet that even if you are that one guy out of a 100 that benefits, there are side effects that seriously degrade your quality of life.
Here’s Dr. Paul Mason’s take on why a high LDL isn’t necessarily a bad thing: