Cholesterol question

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rosy003
rosy003 Posts: 251 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Some important background: I am 31, 5'3 and 122 lbs. I had my 3rd child 5 months ago. I workout fairly regularly (when not sleep deprived, 6 days a week) and eat a healthy diet. I have a family history of high HDL and LDL cholesterol.

My numbers came back and my dr is now "monitoring" my cholesterol for the next 3 months when she will test again and decide if I need medication.

My numbers:
HDL: 81
LDL: 132
Total: 222
Triglycerides: 40

By my calculation, my ratio is 2.7:1. Isn't that supposed to be good? She gave me a list of diet changes to make and the only she listed that I currently eat is cheese. Before I remove cheese from my diet should I get a second opinion? Is she just weirded out by my total "borderline high" number? Why isn't she considering my ratio? Am I completely wrong about this? Your help is appreciated.

Replies

  • lisalsd1
    lisalsd1 Posts: 1,521 Member
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    My total cholesterol was borderline high too; b/c my HDL was high. My LDL was fine. The dr just looked at the total # and started to lecture me about cholesterol levels, until I pointed out the HDL/LDL #s.

    I *think* ideally LDL is supposed to be 100 or less, so yours would be on the high side.

    If the dr wants to monitor it for 3 months, I would try to cut back on some of the dairy, and see if that changes the LDL. Whatever you are doing for the HDL seems to be working though.

    I, personally, wouldn't get a second opinion UNTIL the dr suggests a prescription medicine. Then, I would probably see what another dr thought about it.
  • Wade406
    Wade406 Posts: 272 Member
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    Some important background: I am 31, 5'3 and 122 lbs. I had my 3rd child 5 months ago. I workout fairly regularly (when not sleep deprived, 6 days a week) and eat a healthy diet. I have a family history of high HDL and LDL cholesterol.

    My numbers came back and my dr is now "monitoring" my cholesterol for the next 3 months when she will test again and decide if I need medication.

    My numbers:
    HDL: 81
    LDL: 132
    Total: 222
    Triglycerides: 40

    By my calculation, my ratio is 2.7:1. Isn't that supposed to be good? She gave me a list of diet changes to make and the only she listed that I currently eat is cheese. Before I remove cheese from my diet should I get a second opinion? Is she just weirded out by my total "borderline high" number? Why isn't she considering my ratio? Am I completely wrong about this? Your help is appreciated.

    Take a look at this one, it's helpful to understand what to consider:
    http://nutritionfacts.org/video/heart-disease-starts-in-childhood/

    Your ratio is good, you have a lot of good cholesterol, yay! But the problem is that raising that number doesn't seem to be protective against CHD in various studies.

    CHD really comes down to high LDL. Many people still die every year with a 130 LDL. Even <100 is not a guarantee that you won't get CHD. The guarantees start applying when you get below 70. People with an LDL below 70 don't get CHD; if they have heart troubles its something else.

    That's whey your Dr is saying something. The beauty is you can drop it 30-60 points by diet. Saturated/trans fats are the culprit; that's what raises LDL. And cheese is full of it. Compare the saturated fat of ground beef to cheddar cheese sometime. Its brutal.

    By cutting out saturated fat from my diet (I currently don't have any in my diet) my LDL went from 102 down to 53 in 9 months.
  • kjm_723
    kjm_723 Posts: 66 Member
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    This is interesting. My husband is also being monitored for cholesterol issues. Can't remember his exact numbers but I know he has low good chol and high everything else. According to my husband (who admittedly has selective hearing) the dr didn't recommend any diet changes, just recommended exercising 5 days/wk. What sort of diet changes did your dr recommend. I know my husband isn't going to be working out that much but I buy the food so I can help him in that area.
  • Wade406
    Wade406 Posts: 272 Member
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    This is interesting. My husband is also being monitored for cholesterol issues. Can't remember his exact numbers but I know he has low good chol and high everything else. According to my husband (who admittedly has selective hearing) the dr didn't recommend any diet changes, just recommended exercising 5 days/wk. What sort of diet changes did your dr recommend. I know my husband isn't going to be working out that much but I buy the food so I can help him in that area.

    Well it wasn't so much my Dr as it was watching Forks Over Knives (FOK) after hearing about it from a friend. We had a mutual friend drop dead of CHD at age 60, and he appeared to be in great health! It was shocking and horrible for us and his family. My father had heart bypass surgery at age 54 (that's how old I am) and the heart disease thing started becoming something I wanted to learn about. So I just kept investigating, based on that documentary on Netflix, FOK. Just started googling and youtube searching the Doctors in the video.

    But my Doctor has been cheering me on, let me tell you. Watch this one, its awesome: http://youtu.be/FX58PyQwrcI
  • rosy003
    rosy003 Posts: 251 Member
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    My dr recommended cutting out butter, red meat, poultry with skin, baked goods, full fat dairy, etc. the only thing on that list that I actually eat is cheese. I will try eliminating some cheese and see if that makes a difference. My grandpa had high numbers (LDL and HDL) and never took anything. He lived well into his 80s. I'm pretty unwilling to take medication. But maybe I'm just stubborn.
  • MapleFlavouredMaiden
    MapleFlavouredMaiden Posts: 595 Member
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    All the current recommendations for cholesterol are based on fallacy and bad science. Especially for women. This has come to light recently more and more and is gaining attention in the news (not a great place to get info, but at least it means the gen pop is recognizing it). I'd do some research to see if this is something you really need to be concerned about. I would definitely not take medication. It has been shown to be very dangerous, particularly for women. Research research research!
  • MapleFlavouredMaiden
    MapleFlavouredMaiden Posts: 595 Member
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    My dr recommended cutting out butter, red meat, poultry with skin, baked goods, full fat dairy, etc. the only thing on that list that I actually eat is cheese. I will try eliminating some cheese and see if that makes a difference. My grandpa had high numbers (LDL and HDL) and never took anything. He lived well into his 80s. I'm pretty unwilling to take medication. But maybe I'm just stubborn.

    Rancid toxic oils and fats like margarine, canola oil, etc are much much worse than natural products like butter, milk, etc. Full fat is natural, red meat, skin, etc all that is healthy and good for you in proportion. Eating only muscle meats and rancid oils is not a perscription for health.
  • CeleryStalker
    CeleryStalker Posts: 665 Member
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    Cholesterol confuses me. I, too, was on monitoring for a couple of months. Dr suggested I follow a low cholesterol diet. Tried that for about 2 weeks, all the while doing research and finding that dietary cholesterol has little to do with your actual numbers. Went on a program where I'm eating 150g of meat-derived protein each day, 60g of fat per day, 150g carbs per day. My fats come largely from butter, olive oil, and fish. Went for a re-check and my cholesterol is now normal, after over a year of being high. So, I'm not so sure cutting down on dietary cholesterol is necessary. It certainly didn't play a part in getting my numbers back on track.
  • captmiddy
    captmiddy Posts: 147 Member
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    Cholesterol is a funny thing. I worry about mine because my HDL is low even though my LDL is also very low (total is < 145 combined). My ratio is still good but ideally my HDL should be higher. That being said, you may want to also look at adding, if you don't already eat it, oatmeal to the mix. My wife wasn't blessed with my crazy cholesterol level so hers is slightly elevated and besides reducing cheese she also added oatmeal to her mix and her numbers have really come back in line.

    I won't comment on the oils and such as I don't want to turn your thread into a clean living flame war, but I would take people's personal food opinions with a grain of salt.
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
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    My dr recommended cutting out butter, red meat, poultry with skin, baked goods, full fat dairy, etc. the only thing on that list that I actually eat is cheese. I will try eliminating some cheese and see if that makes a difference. My grandpa had high numbers (LDL and HDL) and never took anything. He lived well into his 80s. I'm pretty unwilling to take medication. But maybe I'm just stubborn.

    follow his recommendations if it doesnt work at your next blood draw (3 months?) then you talk to him, or get a dietitian referral, if there is no change.
  • mreeves261
    mreeves261 Posts: 728 Member
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    My dr recommended cutting out butter, red meat, poultry with skin, baked goods, full fat dairy, etc. the only thing on that list that I actually eat is cheese. I will try eliminating some cheese and see if that makes a difference. My grandpa had high numbers (LDL and HDL) and never took anything. He lived well into his 80s. I'm pretty unwilling to take medication. But maybe I'm just stubborn.

    I'm in the low 200's and refuse to take medication. My ratio is pretty similar to yours. I would say unless you have a family history of heart related problems it shouldn't matter at this point. If you start creeping higher then, yes it matters. If you are able to maintain the levels then tell your doc to get bent when they try to put you on meds.

    Edit: this is STRICTLY my opinion and in no way medical advice. And because I can't spell.
  • Wade406
    Wade406 Posts: 272 Member
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    I would recommend watching these videos with regard to heart disease, which is the reason why anyone cares about cholesterol:

    http://youtu.be/p4hbV4RgzI8

    http://youtu.be/AkWd0R05ZEs

    http://youtu.be/FX58PyQwrcI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqKNfyUPzoU&amp;feature=share&amp;list=PL88WuOVKzK3-tIt4RfIjNDB1ASyQcofCQ
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    Cholesterol confuses me. I, too, was on monitoring for a couple of months. Dr suggested I follow a low cholesterol diet. Tried that for about 2 weeks, all the while doing research and finding that dietary cholesterol has little to do with your actual numbers. Went on a program where I'm eating 150g of meat-derived protein each day, 60g of fat per day, 150g carbs per day. My fats come largely from butter, olive oil, and fish. Went for a re-check and my cholesterol is now normal, after over a year of being high. So, I'm not so sure cutting down on dietary cholesterol is necessary. It certainly didn't play a part in getting my numbers back on track.

    This is true for most people, but for some people dietary cholesterol has a significant impact on blood cholesterol. The only way to know if you are one of the unlucky ones is through blood tests.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
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    My dr recommended cutting out butter, red meat, poultry with skin, baked goods, full fat dairy, etc. the only thing on that list that I actually eat is cheese. I will try eliminating some cheese and see if that makes a difference. My grandpa had high numbers (LDL and HDL) and never took anything. He lived well into his 80s. I'm pretty unwilling to take medication. But maybe I'm just stubborn.

    follow his recommendations if it doesnt work at your next blood draw (3 months?) then you talk to him, or get a dietitian referral, if there is no change.

    I completely agree with this post. Try your doc's recommendations, do the retest. If you're results are improved, well then you know what you need to do to keep your levels lower. If they're not improvied, talk to your doc about what else you can try before going on meds.

    Did your doc mention adding things as well like more green leafy veg, more whole grains and switching to healtheir fats? I don't know what you're doing in that department so maybe you're fine, I just know when I went to a nutritionist about high cholesterol that was the big thing. Not so much about what you can't have but what you should add in to improve things.

    P.S. Is low fat cheese allowed? Could you call her to ask about the ratio thing?
  • Wade406
    Wade406 Posts: 272 Member
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    All the current recommendations for cholesterol are based on fallacy and bad science. Especially for women. This has come to light recently more and more and is gaining attention in the news (not a great place to get info, but at least it means the gen pop is recognizing it). I'd do some research to see if this is something you really need to be concerned about. I would definitely not take medication. It has been shown to be very dangerous, particularly for women. Research research research!

    So you're saying the Framingham Heart Study was bad science? That is the study that put "cholesterol" on the map.

    The Framingham Risk Score is a gender-specific algorithm used to estimate the 10-year cardiovascular risk of an individual. The Framingham Risk Score was first developed based on data obtained from the Framingham Heart Study, to estimate the 10-year risk of developing coronary heart disease.

    In order to assess the 10-year cardiovascular disease risk, cerebrovascular events, peripheral artery disease and heart failure were subsequently added as disease outcomes for the 2008 Framingham Risk Score, on top of coronary heart disease.

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