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cholesterol Levels
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02-09-2009 11:50am#1I've just had my levels checked and I've managed to hit a level of 7.4. Now I face the dreaded fat reduced diet.
Without wishing to know anyones elses levels (unless you want to start a table) but who has higher and who has lower levels? I'm just trying to figure where on the bellcurve I fit amongst Boards folk.I'm older than Minecraft goats.
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Thanks for the link, will start there for further information.OldGoat, did you get a break down of your cholesterol results?
How was your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)?
HDL is the so-called 'Good cholesterol' while LDL is the so-called 'bad cholesterol'.
Did you get your triglycerides measured too?
Have a look at this website for some really good info!There's a number of links to click on at the top of the page.
I got a full work up done. I was told that just looking at the cholesterol alone painted a bad picture but when my weight, diet, smoking and drinking history, family history and age are all taken into account that I need not panic but still need to lose weight, exercise more and work on reducing the level.
My doc (all praise upon his shoulders) is not a pill pusher so he'll keep me off Statins and make me do the work myself.
Anyway, full results:
Cholesterol :7.40mmol/L (Recomended range 0.00 - 5.00)
Triglyceride:3.59 mmol/L (Recomended range 0.00 - 1.90)
HDL Cholesterol :1.18 mmol/L (Recomended range 1.00 - 1.70)
LDL Cholesterol : 4.59 mmol/L
My diet is reasonably good, apart from my dislike of fish and my love of cheese and butter. How can you NOT cook with butter! I walk between 5 & 35 miles a week depending on weather and lazyness and THERE is my personal bogie. Have to get off my arse and loose a kilo or 20.I'm older than Minecraft goats.
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Snow-Monkey wrote: »Og thats so funny .... "how can you not cook with butter :pac:
I dunno but if you find a way let me no ya
Have been looking around and one study says that ghee (clarified butter) REDUCES cholesterol. I use ghee a lot anyway and it will very easly substitute for full fat butter in non-curry dishes. I know one study is not proof but ... WooHooo anyway. I'm older than Minecraft goats.
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Have been looking around and one study says that ghee (clarified butter) REDUCES cholesterol. I use ghee a lot anyway and it will very easly substitute for full fat butter in non-curry dishes. I know one study is not proof but ... WooHooo anyway.
its also very popular with Moroccan cooking to, so if you've got a Tagine... dig it get a Moroccan cookery book and nice lamb with dates thats moist *druels*0 -
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Yeah I eat loads of fresh veg and fruit, lots of it homegrown so that it goes straight from the ground to the pot. As for garlic I think I put it on everything and the same goes for scallions, onions, chives. Like I said, a fairly good diet with a few exception, such as the cheese & butter...and some white bread...and the occasional cream cake...and breakfast roll about one a month...Do you eat vegetables?
Alliums have a cholesterol lowering effect.
3 fresh garlic cloves a day have been shown to reduce cholesterol by 10-15% in some people.
Hey, lemon juice is good for ya right?
/Mixes another G&T with and extra slice of lemon :cool:
I lol'd.Whosbetter? wrote: »Oops, I don't service my car either.
I'm a lost cause.
Had the same attitude when I was younger too but my attitude changes over time and now I wish that my attitude had changed a little earlier in my life. The annual or biannual checkup is peace of mind and thats worth the cost of a meal out.I'm older than Minecraft goats.
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I've known people to die from high cholesterol as young as early 20s. Gonna have to sort that out for yourself man, good that you checked. I got mine done a couple months back to make sure I was good. Think everybody should, not just cholesterol, for everything. The only normal reading you have is HDL so although you say your diet is ok, I don't think it is as it stands. I suppose just cut out the exceptions for now.
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Most people who have high cholesterol don't have it because of what they eat (although that doesn't help) they have it because they are genetically programmed to produce more of it.
The body produces its own cholesterol because cholesterol has a function in the body, some people produce too much and as such any more that they take in from their diet (e.g. eggs, cheese, butter) is too much.
Now if you are having butter instead of margarine on every piece of bread you eat, and if you eat eggs every day as well as cheese everyday then you need to cut back a good bit on those things. Then get your cholesterol checked in a few months and see how it is. If it's still too high, cut back again.
Don't forget too that there are different types of cholesterol the so-called good and bad cholesterol. The ratio of these is important.If you have a lot of good cholesterol then that makes a big difference to the effect your high cholesterol has on your body. Ask your doctor for more advice.
Also, read this
Eating these is good for lowering cholesterol
olive oil
rapeseed oil
avocado
almonds
cashews
peanuts
pistachios
herring
mackerel
pilchards
sardines
salmon
fresh tuna
porridge
beans
lentils
fruit
vegetables
Eating these is BAD for cholesterol:
Butter
Hard cheese
Fatty meat
Red and processed meat
Biscuits
Cakes
Cream
Lard
Dripping
Suet
Ghee
Coconut oil
Palm oil0 -
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I'm no expert on these things but I don't think it's as simple / clear cut as some people and doctors make out. transform made a post on it recently that I found very interesting, I'm going to have to read up on these things a lot more myself...
transforms post - Everything you thought you knew about cholesterol is wrong
Well I viewed the first video and at 1.19 - 1.39 he makes some very inaccurate statements himself
He says:if cholesterol is the cause of heart disease then:
it should be a risk factor in all ages, both sexes and all populations around the world
Wrong.
Firstly, blood biochemistry differs across all ages and as such the reaction to compounds such as cholesterol are different. As we age it is the buildup of certain fats in arteries that cause problems. Secondly heart disease is well known to be multi-factorial (i.e. no single element is responsible, it's a number of factors combined) therefore technically of course cholesterol isn't 'responsible', it's when you hit mid-30s, have a poor diet, little exercise, high cholesterol, maybe you smoke (a big factor), maybe your family has a history of heart disease, maybe you suffer from stress (another big factor in heart disease).
So he's not right about age. What about both sexes? nope, again men and women have very different hormones and levels of those hormones and as such their blood biochemistry is different and other hormones compensate for the damage cholesterol does or even stop it having so much of an effect....
So he's not right about his claim that both sexes should have the same rates of heart disease.
Then he says all populations around the world should be the same too. Again he's wrong. Diets vary so much around the world that of course cardiac disease rates will differ. In certain Asian countries and on the island of Okinawa the amount of fish eaten by people has meant that they live longer and suffer fewer cardiac problems. Diet is key to so much, even increasing the chances of avoiding certain cancers!
Then our genius goes on to say:
That all depends on what other factors are present and how long they have been present...lowering cholesterol ALONE will never reduce heart disease if all other factors are present as it's a chronic problem that develops over time. you need to lower cholesterol, improve lifestyle, stop smoking and reduce stress.Lowering cholesterol should reduce heart disease...
He stresses the ten times, like this is supposed to be shocking or major news. It's not, it's an age related build up of atherosclerosis (arterial inflammation) that leads to thrombus and clot formation that can trigger heart attacks (Myocardial infarction) when either a small piece of clot enters the bloodstream and heart or the artery becomes so blocked that blood flow is severely reduced and the heart muscle doesn't receive enough oxygen leading to the heart attack....but that is't what we see at all. The rate of heart disease in 65 year old men is ten times that of 45 year old men...
I stopped there because those 20 seconds made such wide and sweeping assumptions that I almost cried at the ignorance
Now what is definitely right from all of that is that cholesterol is not the biggest, baddest bogie out there for heart attacks but cholesterol is one of an array of baddies in the war against the heart.
think of a military attacking a country, they don't win by just sending infantry, they send planes, ships, tanks, missiles, rockets, bombers, infantry, commandos, special forces, spies, engineers, signals teams, medical teams etc. The same with heart disease, cholesterol is just one of many things that causes problems but not the worst.
If your cholesterol is high and your bad cholesterol accounts for most of that then that's an issue but not the most important issue. If your triglycerides are very high and the amount of circulating 'free fatty acids' is also high then that's a concern too but stress, smoking and a family history of cardiac disease are all far more important
I do agree with one element of all of these videos and blogs. Where possible people should make changes to diet and lifestyle first BEFORE going onto statins or other drugs for heart disease. The earlier those changes are made in life the less likely those drugs will be needed.
The JAMA study quoted by him later is this by Krumholz et al, 1994. Equally he doesn't quote this study from 2008 which shows that low good cholesterol is not associated with heart disease. Those studies seem to show that cholesterol isn't a problem then, right?
Nope. In the second study for example the authors state that low levels of good cholesterol aren't responsible for an increase in heart disease...unless accompanied by an increase in triglycerides (which is most often the case in people with low HDL (good cholesterol) anyway)...yet the sceptics don't refer to that latter bit, they just quote the first part for their 'evidence'.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely convinced that we understand the evidence for cholesterol myself but I'm certain that it does play a role in contributing to heart disease but is NOT the main cause. Not one cardiologist I've met and worked with (and that's hundreds all across the globe!) have said to me that cholesterol is the main problem in heart disease and they never will because they know it's not true. However, reducing cholesterol, quitting smoking and reducing stress are the easiest* things to do to reduce the overall risk of heart disease and that's why they are targetted by health systems globally.
*not saying quitting smoking is easy.
I'm not attacking you or transform there cocoa but I am attacking the quality of those sources and the use of reference material. Anyone can pluck a study from thin air even from a reputable journal and use it to create a sh*tstorm that ends up making things worse...just look at Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine scandal :mad:
What's worse it that without those sweeping statements and seizing on one reference from 1994 (ancient reference in scientific terms) he could have presented an excellent case but I can't watch any more of that first video because of everything that's wrong with just those ten seconds of video 0 -
cheers for that r3nu4l, like I said I wouldn't in any way claim to be an expert or know a huge amount, the only point I really wanted to make is it's worth looking into these things a bit deeper, not that everything in my link was the one true source
I'm hoping to read up on it more, there was another link at the end (with no video =P) about atherosclerosis and the history of research (cholesterol fed rabbit and more) which was really interesting but of course, using just one source (especially from the internet) is just plain silly so I'm looking to read more
Thanks for the in depth post, more food for thought (= 0 -
cheers for that r3nu4l, like I said I wouldn't in any way claim to be an expert or know a huge amount, the only point I really wanted to make is it's worth looking into these things a bit deeper, not that everything in my link was the one true source
I'm hoping to read up on it more, there was another link at the end (with no video =P) about atherosclerosis and the history of research (cholesterol fed rabbit and more) which was really interesting but of course, using just one source (especially from the internet) is just plain silly so I'm looking to read more Thanks for the in depth post, more food for thought (=
No worries at all. As I said, it wasn't a dig at you or transform at all. The cholesterol story is a difficult one to fully elucidate and it's not the main part of the story. That much is dead right so the point made by transform still stands.I just didn't like that video because it claimed to be correcting misperceptions while also generating a ton of other misperceptions and making many false and misleading statements. I don't think the guy deliberately made false statements I just don't think his scientific training is up to a high enough standard to be accurate in the detail he tried to go into.
The good thing about this thread is that it's prompted me to do a bit more research for myself as well.0 -
I've been getting full bloods done every 2 months for the last year. There has been a lot of changing medication that i am on so it's best to keep an eye on ****. Apparently all my numbers are insane and i have pretty much "perfect health" from kidney and liver function, to cholesterol and thyroid and all that ****.
Makes no sense to me as i feel like crap daily.
I'll get my numbers from the doc tomorrow and last them up here.0 -
Well I viewed the first video and at 1.19 - 1.39 he makes some very inaccurate statements himself
He says:
Wrong.
Firstly, blood biochemistry differs across all ages and as such the reaction to compounds such as cholesterol are different. As we age it is the buildup of certain fats in arteries that cause problems. Secondly heart disease is well known to be multi-factorial (i.e. no single element is responsible, it's a number of factors combined) therefore technically of course cholesterol isn't 'responsible', it's when you hit mid-30s, have a poor diet, little exercise, high cholesterol, maybe you smoke (a big factor), maybe your family has a history of heart disease, maybe you suffer from stress (another big factor in heart disease).
So he's not right about age. What about both sexes? nope, again men and women have very different hormones and levels of those hormones and as such their blood biochemistry is different and other hormones compensate for the damage cholesterol does or even stop it having so much of an effect....
So he's not right about his claim that both sexes should have the same rates of heart disease.
Then he says all populations around the world should be the same too. Again he's wrong. Diets vary so much around the world that of course cardiac disease rates will differ. In certain Asian countries and on the island of Okinawa the amount of fish eaten by people has meant that they live longer and suffer fewer cardiac problems. Diet is key to so much, even increasing the chances of avoiding certain cancers!
Then our genius goes on to say:
That all depends on what other factors are present and how long they have been present...lowering cholesterol ALONE will never reduce heart disease if all other factors are present as it's a chronic problem that develops over time. you need to lower cholesterol, improve lifestyle, stop smoking and reduce stress.
He stresses the ten times, like this is supposed to be shocking or major news. It's not, it's an age related build up of atherosclerosis (arterial inflammation) that leads to thrombus and clot formation that can trigger heart attacks (Myocardial infarction) when either a small piece of clot enters the bloodstream and heart or the artery becomes so blocked that blood flow is severely reduced and the heart muscle doesn't receive enough oxygen leading to the heart attack.
I stopped there because those 20 seconds made such wide and sweeping assumptions that I almost cried at the ignorance
Now what is definitely right from all of that is that cholesterol is not the biggest, baddest bogie out there for heart attacks but cholesterol is one of an array of baddies in the war against the heart.
think of a military attacking a country, they don't win by just sending infantry, they send planes, ships, tanks, missiles, rockets, bombers, infantry, commandos, special forces, spies, engineers, signals teams, medical teams etc. The same with heart disease, cholesterol is just one of many things that causes problems but not the worst.
If your cholesterol is high and your bad cholesterol accounts for most of that then that's an issue but not the most important issue. If your triglycerides are very high and the amount of circulating 'free fatty acids' is also high then that's a concern too but stress, smoking and a family history of cardiac disease are all far more important
I do agree with one element of all of these videos and blogs. Where possible people should make changes to diet and lifestyle first BEFORE going onto statins or other drugs for heart disease. The earlier those changes are made in life the less likely those drugs will be needed.
The JAMA study quoted by him later is this by Krumholz et al, 1994. Equally he doesn't quote this study from 2008 which shows that low good cholesterol is not associated with heart disease. Those studies seem to show that cholesterol isn't a problem then, right?
Nope. In the second study for example the authors state that low levels of good cholesterol aren't responsible for an increase in heart disease...unless accompanied by an increase in triglycerides (which is most often the case in people with low HDL (good cholesterol) anyway)...yet the sceptics don't refer to that latter bit, they just quote the first part for their 'evidence'.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely convinced that we understand the evidence for cholesterol myself but I'm certain that it does play a role in contributing to heart disease but is NOT the main cause. Not one cardiologist I've met and worked with (and that's hundreds all across the globe!) have said to me that cholesterol is the main problem in heart disease and they never will because they know it's not true. However, reducing cholesterol, quitting smoking and reducing stress are the easiest* things to do to reduce the overall risk of heart disease and that's why they are targetted by health systems globally.
*not saying quitting smoking is easy.
I'm not attacking you or transform there cocoa but I am attacking the quality of those sources and the use of reference material. Anyone can pluck a study from thin air even from a reputable journal and use it to create a sh*tstorm that ends up making things worse...just look at Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine scandal :mad:
What's worse it that without those sweeping statements and seizing on one reference from 1994 (ancient reference in scientific terms) he could have presented an excellent case but I can't watch any more of that first video because of everything that's wrong with just those ten seconds of video
I made a post about this here ages ago but I haven't discussed the topic much since. I also just started reading The Great Cholesterol Con (I noted it at the end of the post) so hopefully I'll have a better idea of the subject in about 200 pages time! However, your post was interesting as I'd never really seen much direct 'criticism' of the skeptics' argument.
It might be a good idea for anyone worried about their cholesterol levels to look further into the effects of cholesterol, the theories about it and all that jazz. Then again, the jargon and heaps of information could be overwhelming to somebody learning from scratch...0 -
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Snow-Monkey wrote: »there is medication you can take for it
Not as simple as that. My Mum has been on two different types of tablets and they have given her bad side effects. Some of the side effects listed are mental! :eek:
She had thought she was doing good lately by dropping a few pounds but I kept telling her that weight loss doesn't mean the cholestrol has come down. Wee feicer weighs less than me :pac:
Finally convinced her to go back and get it checked, she had only dropped .2 of what she was. So it's at 6.7 now which is very high. She doesn't even drink or smoke!
My best mates mum and dad had high cholestrol too up in the 7 mark and they have simply just cut out the bad stuff and do eat very well. All thanks to their daughter as she is proper strict with them, serious tough love!
So I'm getting more strict on my mum and she has been doing very good but there are still areas she could tighten up on. I do say to her now when she feels like slacking a bit, I point to the photo of the grandkids and say "do you want to be around to see the kids grow up or not, it's your feicin choice". May sound harsh but I'd rather tell her that home truth than be organising her wake and funeral. (I also use that line too!) Do tell her I love her after that though :pac:
The doctor is giving her 8 weeks to get the levels down and if she does then she will take her off the tablets. She really wants to be off them anyway due to the side effects so she has to put in the effort. Alot of it is about breaking bad habits.
So OldGoat definitely get yer arse in gear and get on top of this pronto. I want to continue seeing you at beers for many feicin years yet!
Never got mine checked but I've a strong feeling it would be pretty damn high, considering the crap I eat and drink Mentioned to my doc just last month about maybe getting it checked out but she just kinda dismissed the idea, might just make her take me damn blood and get it checked! 0 -
dude cheers for the comments but there is sooo much you are incorrect in saying in even the above statement regarding even the fats you claim to be 'bad' for cholesterol.Most people who have high cholesterol don't have it because of what they eat (although that doesn't help) they have it because they are genetically programmed to produce more of it.
The body produces its own cholesterol because cholesterol has a function in the body, some people produce too much and as such any more that they take in from their diet (e.g. eggs, cheese, butter) is too much.
Now if you are having butter instead of margarine on every piece of bread you eat, and if you eat eggs every day as well as cheese everyday then you need to cut back a good bit on those things. Then get your cholesterol checked in a few months and see how it is. If it's still too high, cut back again.
Don't forget too that there are different types of cholesterol the so-called good and bad cholesterol. The ratio of these is important.If you have a lot of good cholesterol then that makes a big difference to the effect your high cholesterol has on your body. Ask your doctor for more advice.
Also, read this
Eating these is good for lowering cholesterol
olive oil
rapeseed oil
avocado
almonds
cashews
peanuts
pistachios
herring
mackerel
pilchards
sardines
salmon
fresh tuna
porridge
beans
lentils
fruit
vegetables
Eating these is BAD for cholesterol:
Butter
Hard cheese
Fatty meat
Red and processed meat
Biscuits
Cakes
Cream
Lard
Dripping
Suet
Ghee
Coconut oil
Palm oil
Added to the fact that its particle size that is the most important issue for LDL cholesterol NOT the total score
Start with someone like Chris Kresser and work from there - http://chriskresser.com/blog/5-reasons-not-to-worry-about-your-cholesterol-numbers/
All the best0 -
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I also have a love of cheese, but it gets eaten with tomato ketchup. It seems the ketchup helps keep my cholesterol level downmy love of cheese and butter. How can you NOT cook with butter!
I'm serious; it works for me. I have been nagged into having two cholesterol checks over a period of a year due to the amount of cheese I eat, but both times my cholesterol has been okay. Someone here may have more to say on the matter. I think it's the vinegar in it that makes it so anti-cholesterol?0 -
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