Wait, what? AHA study undermines their position?

(Duncan Kerridge) #1

I picked this up from twitter, a recently published AHA study that looks at the role of LDL and triglycerides in heart failure.

The findings … ‘Stepwise higher concentrations of nonfasting triglycerides were associated with stepwise higher risk of heart failure; however, concentrations of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were not associated with risk of heart failure in the general population.’

05

http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/11/01/ATVBAHA.117.310269

Statin anyone?

Now I wonder what kind of diet dramatically reduces triglycerides …? Anyone with a better science head care to take a look at this? @richard

(Richard Morris) #2

That doesn’t surprise me one bit.

Triglycerides in the blood indicate that you aren’t using them for energy … that’s a good sign that insulin is high inhibiting transport of fatty acids into your mitochondria to be burned, and we know that chronically high insulin is necessary and sufficient for cardio vascular disease.

(Duncan Kerridge) #3

Could that explain a jump in trigs some people (myself included) see when they start keto as in this thread ?: https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/strange-blood-results/23651

Fat stores being released by low insulin but not enough adaption yet to efficiently use them?

(Richard Morris) #4

I think It’s usually the other way around.

Obese Type 2 diabetics have insulin resistant adipose tissue … so they have plenty of fat in circulation they just can’t use it. Lower insulin and they can all of a sudden use it and they draw down their body fat till adipose tissue becomes insulin sensitive … and then they plateau because their insulin is still too high to enable their now sensitive adipose tissue to release energy.

(Duncan Kerridge) #5

And if you’re not insulin resistant? My a1c is 4.5 and fasting insulin is 2 - I didn’t plateau from start to goal, but my trigs went crazy at the start.

(Richard Morris) #6

Interesting. I guess am probably hyper-focused on diabetes.

But if I were to speculate, I would say that if your fasted insulin is low then as you changed your diet your insulin dropped from where it was in response to the carbs you used to eat to the floor set by your fasted insulin. So now your cells are no longer constrained by that, so they will burn fat eagerly all the time - but there is a limit to how much energy they will take up and use. I suspect the low levels of insulin you are able to achieve resulted in your fat cells releasing more energy (as free fatty acids) than your cells were able to use … so your liver just vacuumed up the remains and packed it into triglycerides to be sent back to your fat cells for storage in vLDL particles.

So the net effect would be your trigs jumped because your fat cells were over enthusiastic when the insulin brakes were taken off, and they dumped more than you could use into circulation.

Did that tail off after a while once your fat cells were no longer as stuffed with energy.

(Duncan Kerridge) #7

That sounds reasonable, they were 200-odd before keto then jumped to 600 after three months of keto and then dropped to just over 100 after six months when I had lost 50 pounds. I’ve been stable at that weight for another six months now so i’m going to test again soon.

#8

This seems a good possible explanation to why my Trigs jumped up significantly after starting keto (see thread above).

The other factor with me is that I’m Type 1 diabetic and use an insulin pump. Prior to keto I was on a basel rate of around 21 units of insulin and a total of 40-45 ui per day. I’ve now got this down to 16 ui basel and less than 20 ui in total.

@richard - based on what you’ve said above, I’m assuming I should see Trigs reducing over the next few months once my body gets more fat adapted?

#9

I am in that stall right now after 7 months on LCHF after having lost half the weight I need to lose. I have started exercising 2 weeks ago and have been fasting for 8 months, up to 6 days and not comfortable going longer than that (in general fasts are less appealing to me than they were). Thinking of adding Berberine. I cannot measure my insulin as I live in a state that does not allow you to buy tests on the internet. When I measure it my morning glucose has gone down. During fasts it is very low 60s, higher but still normal other days. I am sure I was insulin resistant before I started keto but do not have numbers