high cholesterol

cut out all the crap carbs like pasta, white rice, white bread and sugar

A fair number of people have success with a grain free diet. If you want to see the science behind it, read "Wheat Belly." Yes, that means cutting out traditional bread, pasta and such.

If you want recipes that will work search "paleo" and whatever you have available to cook with and you can find some pretty good stuff. We are having Paleo Turkey Pot Pie tonight with a biscuit made with ground almonds. It smells really good, and the kids can't wait to try it. (The dough tasted really good too!)

This happened to me when I was 16. I started eating Cheerios & bananas (these became a staple to my diet until I gave up cereal a few weeks ago). I did not eat ANYTHING like mayonnaise, hotdogs, other things with fat. I ate as lean as possible & stopped eating fried foods altogether. I also started exercising at that time. It took a month or two to get back to normal levels. Good luck, you'll be fine!

I'm 50 years old and have successfully lowered my blood lipids into what my doctor calls "terrific" levels through diet and exercise. Most recent results:

Total VLDL = 12 (goal <30) ~~~~
Total HDL = 69 (goal >40) ~~~~
Non HDL = 90 (goal <160) ~~~~
Triglycerides = 41 (goal <150) ~~~~
Total Chol = 160 (goal <200) ~~~~

Lp(a) cholesterol (goal <10) dropped from 11 to 6, which is phenomenal because it's widely considered to be genetic and hard to change with diet/exercise.

Note however that I've taken a "shotgun approach" to it. There is no one particular thing that I think worked. It's a combination of cleaning up my diet, adding supplements that might help, and getting in the habit of a lot of daily exercise.

Things I believe helped:

Lots more vegetables. Usually keeping red meat to 3 oz per week or less. (Occasionally blow right over that, lol)
Salmon or tuna 3 times per week
Chicken or turkey, usually 3-4 oz servings
Raw unsalted walnuts and almonds (usually 1/2 cup per day - lots of cals but great for chol)
Usually have at least one meat-free day per week
Cut way back on cakes, cookies, etc, compared to what I used to do
Use olive oil and walnut oil for cooking
Get plenty of vitamins, especially C and D3
L-Lysine supplement

You're welcome to look through my food diary for ideas

I also get at least an hour of cardio every day, usually more like 2.5 hours, mostly walking, jogging, elliptical, and hiking in the hills

Good luck to you

Total VLDL = 12 (goal <30) ~~~~
Total HDL = 69 (goal >40) ~~~~
Non HDL = 90 (goal <160) ~~~~
Triglycerides = 41 (goal <150) ~~~~
Total Chol = 160 (goal <200) ~~~~

Those numbers are phenomenal! Great job!

Cutting out processed carbs worked for me.

There's a whole other line of thinking about cholesterol that my doctor has explained to me. Beyond the very basic "HDL is good, LDL is bad" premise, most people don't understand why our bodies create cholesterol at all. (Most cholesterol is created by your own body, not sucked out of food you eat and dumped into your bloodstream.) So why would our bodies create "bad" cholesterol that gunks up our blood vessels? If you address that, you may find the solution.

Some researchers - Linus Pauling for example - say that we create LDL cholesterol in response to damage and inflammation in our vascular system. And while certain foods may contribute to that damage, other foods/nutrients may help prevent or heal it.

Rather than write a whole new thing about this I'm just going to paste something I sent to someone else recently. Anyone interested can hit google for more on this approach if they want to. There's plenty out there.

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If I recall Ruth's explanation correctly, our bodies produce more LDL cholesterol in response to tissue damage (I had never heard this before) and that includes damage to blood vessels. Cholesterol is used to coat damaged tissues while they're being repaired, sort of like an internal bandage applied while other processes try to repair the damage. Ideally, HDL is supposed to come through and scour the LDL off of the area as it heals. Plaques are formed when the inflammation can't be reduced, the LDL stays there, and if things get worse the blood vessel can be entirely blocked or a blood clot can form and then break loose, resulting in all kindsa trouble.

So while LDL is widely condemned as the "bad cholesterol" it serves a purpose. Instead of figuring out WHY the body is producing too much LDL and trying to fix the source of the problem, most doctors just try to reduce the level of LDL. (Sound familiar?)

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15681098
Abstract
Inflammation leads to changes in lipid metabolism aimed at decreasing the toxicity of a variety of harmful agents and tissue repair by redistributing nutrients to cells involved in host defence. Acute phase response, mediated by cytokines, preserves the host from acute injury. When this inflammation becomes chronic, it might lead to chronic disorders as atherosclerosis and the metabolic syndrome. The activation of the inflammatory cascade will induce a decrease in HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), with impairment in reverse cholesterol transport, and parallel changes in apolipoproteins, enzymes, anti-oxidant capacity and ATP binding cassette A1-dependent efflux. This decrease in HDL-C and phospholipids could stimulate compensatory changes, as synthesis and accumulation of phospholipid-rich VLDL which binds bacterial products and other toxic substances, resulting in hypertriglyceridemia. The final consequence is an increased accumulation of cholesterol in cells. When the compensatory response (inflammation) is not able to repair injury, it turns into a harmful reaction, and the lipid changes will become chronic, either by repeated or overwhelming stimulus, enhancing the formation of atherosclerotic lesions. Thus, the classical lipid changes associated with the metabolic syndrome (increased triglycerides and decreased HDL-C) may be envisioned as a highly conserved evolutionary response aimed at tissue repair. Under this assumption, the problem is not the response but the persistence of the stimulus.

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http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cholesterol

http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/24/7/1143.full

Well said, @Enigmatica. I wish more doctors understood that. It is possible to force the cholesterol levels too low and cause other problems, such as an increased risk of stroke.

I'm reminded of Larry Burkett, a financial counselor I used to listen to on the radio in the late 1990s/early 2000s, whose family had a history of early heart disease. After Larry suffered a "silent" heart attack at age 50, he made drastic dietary and lifestyle changes: very low-fat diet, white-meat chicken only, small amounts of fish, almost no red meat, and walking three to five miles a day. He reduced his total cholesterol from 240 to 100 (yes, one hundred), and kept it there. His doctors never told him that his cholesterol level could be too low; they thought it was great.

Within five years, Larry had developed a rare form of kidney cancer that metastasized to his shoulder. After having the kidney and the shoulder blade removed, and several years of treatment, he was declared cancer-free in 2003. He died a week or so later, at age 64...of the heart disease that runs in his family.

Sure, this is just one man's story. But Larry Burkett went to his grave convinced, based on the research he did after his diagnosis, that his ultra-low cholesterol level had been a major contributor to his developing cancer--and in the end, it didn't stop the heart disease from overtaking him.

Exactly! I also went from one extreme to the other initially because I went toooo low fat instead of knowing to choose helpful fats. Not *enough* cholesterol and triglycerides can be a whole other boatload of trouble including inadequate tissue repair and disruption of hormonal system that can mess with your sleep, trigger depression, sink your immune system, etc.

Our bodies need cholesterol - the key is in the right balance. And achieving the balance seems to be best accomplished by understanding how nutrition and exercise impact you as an individual. Some people have lowered their LDL levels by switching to anti-inflammatory diet and making sure they get plenty of vitamin C, L-Lysine, and other nutrients to support vascular system. Some people would FREAK if they looked at my total fat intake on a typical day. What they don't realize is that our bodies need certain fats to support a variety of functions. Learning how to incorporate a healthy balance of fats into my diet is one of the key factors in my now healthy cholesterol levels. Other nutrients are crucial too. And obviously exercise is a big factor as well.

Sad story about Larry Burkett.

I've had high cholesterol pretty much my whole life. Diet and exercise do not seem to change it. My most recent test results were pretty darned high and I've eaten better and exercised more in the last 6 months than I have in over 10 years. I've been on meds for it for over 15. It sucks, but I've decided it's just a part of my life. And that's pretty lame.

But... what dietary changes did you make that didn't work? If you followed the old recommendations to slash fat and cholesterol the bad news is that more research is coming out indicating that may not work if your body is producing LDL in response to vascular damage that may be caused by insufficient nutrition. A lot of people get too many calories but not enough of the nutrients they need for healthy bodies. For example, plenty of overweight people are deficient in vitamin C, D, and E. (Not saying YOU are, just using this as a common example.) Cutting back on foods that may or may not be causing the cholesterol to soar might not alleviate the problem if the body isn't provided with the nutrients needed to heal at the same time.

Here's an example to consider - just one of many... http://www.athero.org/commentaries/comm79.asp