Cholesterol and all that gubbins...

[mrcharly-YHT]

So, I a recent details blood workup.

Cholesterol results not good; total of 6.28, LDL up to 4.37

Not terribly surprising; I'm simply not exercising as much. Alcohol consumption up quite a bit from maybe 2 drinks a week to maybe 7. So I make a commitment to do more sustained aerobic exercise, drop Cheese (and other dairy) from diet.

MrsC has great fun teasing me about all this.

She's just had a blood test; Total over 8 (don't know the breakdown yet).

Her diet is theoretically good, but far too much alcohol. Probably 5 times my consumption. No exercise. The last factor is complicated by her having what looks like long covid.

[citoyen]

I dread to think what my cholesterol level might be. Giving up booze for October has been easier than I expected, and maybe that will have brought it down a tad, but I basically live off cheese... the idea of giving that up as well fills me with abject horror

[Auntie Helen]

I live off cheese but my cholesterol levels are great - I just had to give up the carbs!

[chrisbainbridge]

The truly important thing is the ratio of LDL to HDL. On any Keto diet total is high but ratio is usually excellent. Do not let them treat just on the global figure.

[ElyDave]

Resurrecting this thread,  I've just had a letter from the diabetes registrar, stating that because repeat high cholesterol, she IS putting me on statins.

I've discussed this with the Consultant several times, and he was not overly concerned, particularly when he understood low carb diet, copious cycling, no obesity, blood pressure fine, maybe a little low etc, he even said he'd go and chat with a tame lipidologist (don't know if this actually happened). So I'm tempted to respond to registrar with
1 no process followed here, jumped straight to drugs
2 no advice/consultation on diet, alcohol (can definitely cut this)
3 niacin
4 ultimately choice of statin - hydrophilic vs lipophilic seems to have a big effect on muscle soreness and increase in blood glucose, quite important for a type 1 diabetic habitual exerciser.

Seems overall poor doctoring to me

As an aside, I'd be interested to hear who's on hydro vs lipophilic here, and experience of side effects

[rogerzilla]

My overall cholesterol was 5.8 but HDL was 1.7 so they decided it was a load of rubbish.  1.7 is just about impossible, so all the figures were likely to be inflated.  I may have been dehydrated when the sample was taken, and I had drunk very strong coffee.  Both are known to mess up the test.

[ElyDave]

My tests are generally taken after I've ridden at least 25, often 50km to my appointments. Nobody has been able to give me any explanation as to how this might affect the test, particularly triglycerides, which I understand are a useful fuel in low carbers

[Ripio]

My overall cholesterol was 5.8 but HDL was 1.7 so they decided it was a load of rubbish.  1.7 is just about impossible, so all the figures were likely to be inflated.  I may have been dehydrated when the sample was taken, and I had drunk very strong coffee.  Both are known to mess up the test.

My HDL was 2.0 when I had mine tested three years ago.