Can calorie counting help lower cholesterol and tryglycerides?

NextRightThing2015

Agree with Jessicapk, fiber is important. Whether you get it through eating whole foods or through psyllium husk, or a combination of the two, it will help lower your cholesterol. I use orange-flavored Metamucil or Now Foods Psyllium Husk Powder in addition to eating foods high in fiber - oats, vegetables, beans, etc. - as suggested by my doctor.

soapsandropes

For me the key to lower my triglycerides was regular (3-5 days a week) exercise and eating less (not low) carbs and more dietary fat.

brandyosu

IWTBFCIN3 wrote: »

My cardiac surgeon told me to cut down on carbs to lower my triglycerides and to lose weight. Yes losing weight can help lower them as well as exercise! Just counting calories alone is not much help! In my opinion!

I was diagnosed as having hereditary high cholesterol at age 26. At the time, I was a healthy weight and did strength training and cardio regularly. They put me on a statin to lower my cholesterol. It didn't do much. They put me on a second medication and my levels still remained in the elevated range. So, my PC doc suggested I cut back on carbs. I did and within the three months until my next blood test I managed to get my total cholesterol down to 176 (don't remember the breakout of HDL compared to LDL). I eventually went off the medications because I got married and wanted to have children. I then ignored my elevated cholesterol for years. I recently was put back on one of the medications I used to take (I just turned 40 last month) but I also just recently started trying to eat better...my last test showed me around 170 total cholesterol (again, don't remember HDL/LDL stats). I'm not doing low carb, per se, but I am more focused on my consumption of protein and fats and trying to eat fewer carbs while also eating better better carbs (whole wheat breads and pastas vs. regular, more veggies, fruits, etc).

tomatoey

I never had a problem with cholesterol until well after I lost weight. Not until this year (am also pushing 40 and I guess have the genetics for it Am still only "borderline high" but yeah, don't want that to get worse.

If there's something I can actually do to promote health and maybe mitigate some of the various health problems that are starting to creep, I'm going to try it.

Though that's easy for me to say when the recommendation is lower carb, because I find that + getting to keep my steaks extremely easy to live with, suits my tastes. Much easier than having to eat just a little bit of skinless chicken breast or fish or veggie-only. (Most of the fish we can actually get where I live isn't delicious or fresh, and I usually find chicken revolting. And although I do like veggies, I always double my calorie intake on days I try to avoid meat (leaves me so hungry! Although I know it helps to know how to eat as a vegetarian to avoid that. Like the Mediterranean diet would be the saddest thing ever for me, given I don't live in the Mediterranean or have access to fresh, line-caught bream. I think I would still probably do it, though, if it helped.)

psuLemon

yarwell wrote: »

psulemon wrote: »

Carbs do not increase triglycerides.

Except when they do - like +40% or more in a high carb low fat diet at maintenance calories in http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/77/1/43.full.pdf+html (Table 3)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11082210 "It has been known for decades that low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets can increase plasma triglyceride levels"

"When the content of dietary carbohydrate is elevated above the level typically consumed (>55% of energy), blood concentrations of triglycerides rise. This phenomenon, known as carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia, is paradoxical because the increase in dietary carbohydrate usually comes at the expense of dietary fat." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584104

1. My only concern with this study, was it was only 5days in duration. It would be interesting to see how this would play out over an extended period of time.

2. Do you have the full article for the second abstract?

3. Not really a study but an observation. I will note, that the studies they reference are fairly extreme. In the first study they reference, the people were switched to a diet of almost not fat and 76% carbs. And the second study was on postmenopausal women (which I don't think would apply to this situation).


Either way, if I was to infer anything, it would be not to follow a diet that is 70% + in carbs. I guess my bigger question that I have, is the increase in triglycerides due to the increase in carbs or the decrease in fats. Since fats are essential, there may be potential that it has a greater impact than carbs themselves. Additionally, we have learned that a low cholesterol diet can cause your body to create cholesterol which causes an increase in total cholesterol levels.

I would also enjoying seeing more recent studies. Unfortunately, the newest article was from 2003.


I will also note, that my N=1 study. I eat about 2500 calories a day (45% carbs, 32% fats, 27% protein) I workout 6 days a week and lost 10 lbs in the 9 months between my two doctors visits (Sept 2014 vs June 2015). Below is a then/now comparison of my numbers.

Cholesterol -194-->187
Triglycerides - 101 --> 63
HDL - 47 --> 47
LDL- 127 -->127

Based on genetics, it's very difficult to alter cho, LDL and HDL's. Once i finish unpacking my new house, I will pull the last 5 years of my blood work. All have been fairly similar.

TLDR - genetics is a beotch!

yarwell

Not sure why studies have to be recent to be valid. Once you've established the science it's just repetition. The links I posted establish that carbohydrates beget triglycerides, contrary to the previous assertion.

It's widely known that carbohydrate restriction generally increases HDL cholesterol and reduces triglycerides beyond calorie restriction.

As you like new stuff here's a comparison of restricted carbs vs restricted fat in a meta-analysis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3530364/ " Compared with participants on low-fat diets, persons on low-carbohydrate diets experienced ... a greater increase in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (3.3 mg/dL; 95% confidence interval: 1.9, 4.7) and a greater decrease in triglycerides (−14.0 mg/dL; 95% confidence interval: −19.4, −8.7)"

Same authors RCT of two diets http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25178568 also gave greater reduction in triglycerides -14 and greater increase in HDL +7 mg/dl full text here

Here's another recent one http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3845365/
"There was a significant effect of diet on the change in plasma triglycerides and HDL cholesterol levels. HDL levels increased (P=0.009) and triglyceride (P=0.002) concentrations decreased after weight loss in the HFLC group, but not the LFHC group. Subjects that consumed the HFLC diet had a greater absolute change in fasting serum triglycerides (−23.0%, P=0.002) and HDL (11.2%, P=0.003) after weight loss compared to the LFHC diet"

The phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" comes to mind.

dietstokes

I know when I'm doing research, it is frowned upon to use anything older than 10 years of age. While you say, once its been established its just repetition, however thats not true. Our technology is constantly changing, altering how we can do studies. Our understanding of things changes over time too as other related studies are completed, changing how we may interpret data. Studies vary greatly in my field 20 years ago and now, and its true in other field as well.

Keith3481

For me, the entire process of logging, burning more calories than I consume, and losing weight allowed me to come off a cholesterol/triglyceride medication I was taking called simcor. Simcor is a combination of simvastatin for high cholesterol and niacin for high triglycerides. So to answer the OP's original question, I think the entire weight loss process can help you with your numbers.

Mr_Knight

ShrinkingStargazer wrote: »

Can calorie counting help lower cholesterol and tryglycerides?

No.

But eating the right amounts of food can.

PAV8888

Current blood tests are: normal, nothing out of whack.
Before losing some weight I was pre-diabetic with high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and occasionally high blood pressure.
Calorie Counting is helping me lose weight in a controlled fashion.

yarwell

dietstokes wrote: »

I know when I'm doing research, it is frowned upon to use anything older than 10 years of age. While you say, once its been established its just repetition, however thats not true. Our technology is constantly changing, altering how we can do studies. Our understanding of things changes over time too as other related studies are completed, changing how we may interpret data. Studies vary greatly in my field 20 years ago and now, and its true in other field as well.

In engineering the latest technology is often about presentation and analysis while the underlying equations depend on a pipe smoking stern Victorian man in a hat.

Of course it's good practice to look for recent developments and papers citing the older ones are a good way to track that down, but it seems somewhat well childish to dismiss something just because of time since publication.