Suddenly High Cholesterol & Underactive Thyroid ... oO

Yes the hypothyroidism explains the high cholesterol. Vitamin D deficiency and high blood sugar are also things to watch. I found lowering carbs more effective at controlling my cholesterol levels than lowering fat. good luck -You are not alone.

First get your thyroid taken care of... Then be concerned about high cholesterol. Hypo can drastically affect your cholesterol levels.

Next, dietary intake of cholesterol and fatty foods has very little to do with serum levels. While eating a very fatty meal with loads and loads of fat, saturated fat and cholesterol will elevate your postprandial levels, this should clear within a couple of hours. The big thing that will elevate fasting cholesterol levels--outside of genetic factors--is forcing the liver into a state of de novo lipogenesis. There are two big causes of this: 1) alcohol. 2) consumption of to many carbohydrates that are digestible to glucose (or fructose, sucrose, maltose) outside of what you are able to readily burn off immediately. This is because once your glycogen stores are full the cells will no longer uptake glucose. This will cause the liver to convert glucose to fat hindering normal fat metabolism. The liver will pump out triglycerides, then form LDL from this in the form of a small cell LDL. HDL drops, triglycerides increase, LDL increases. Your LDL receptors in the liver are bad at picking up small cell LDL keeping this at a persistently high level.

This is just an FYI.

Arliah wrote: »

Thanks a lot! I don't drink alcohol, so that can be ruled out. Not quite sure what I could do about the fasting cholesterol levels. I'll make sure to ask my doctor. Thanks again for the input. I tend to stress out about things like that and am just really worried right now.

Doctors are notoriously bad with the etiology of hypercholesteriemia and lipid metabolism. This is changing, recently the U.S. government changed their dietary guidelines regarding cholesterol. They are finally admitting that dietary intake of cholesterol has little to do with fasting cholesterol level. They are slowly moving towards dietary fat isn't bad, depending on the fat source, but this will be a decade off before they finally admit fully.

Fix the thyroid issue first. This alone may correct everything.

Now a simple guide to fix your fasting cholesterol levels if you do not have a genetic disorder:

One caveat: If you are in a state of actively losing weight (fat weight), then your fasting triglycerides and cholesterol will be high. It is necessary if you're burning fat. You cannot do that without high serum levels.

Here's the recipe. Change your macros to protein enough to maintain muscle (0.8g/LBM). Move fat up (45%) and carbohydrates down (25%). Make sure your fats are from good sources (fish, extra virgin olive oil, ghee, ruminant animals preferably grass fed). No vegetable oils or any seed oils they are heavily oxidized, which opens up a whole mess in lipid metabolism. In order to increase HDL, you need to eat fat and preferably small, medium and long chain saturated fatty acids in that order of preference.

If you want to geek out on lipid metabolism, add me and I can spend all kinds of time over PM directing you towards current research.

Arliah wrote: »

Ok, so it could be because of the active fat burning? I am losing about 1 lbs a week and my BF is going down steadily.

Generally, you need to be quite overweight and burning a lot of fat in order for this to effect fasting levels. Based off your profile photo, I would say this is unlikely and more to do with your thyroid and the high contribution of carbohydrates to you diet. It's really hard to not force yourself into de novo lipogenesis with a 45% carbohydrate load. You really need to be working that off all the time to avoid that issue, which is very hard to do.

Arliah wrote: »

I tend to stress out about things like that and am just really worried right now.

Do Not Panic. Listen to your body and trust your instincts.
This was the best advice I got when I went Hyperthyroid and anemic.

First, you may just want to get retested. Mistakes can happen and other factors may have just caused a wacky reading. You absolutely have the right to ask for this, be listened to and get this done.

Although I can't speak on hypo...I really benefited by reading "Living well with Graves' Disease" by Mary Shomon.

She also wrote this:
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Well-Hypothyroidism-Revised-Edition/dp/0060740957

The book "The Thyroid Solution" was also recommended to me and helped a bit, but I really, really got so much from the Shomon book.

I ended up visiting an endo but DID NOT follow his advice. Based on what I had learned from all the reading I did as well as what I knew about myself - I made specific diet changes, started incorporating visualization and breathing exercises and I also began donating blood (which felt right for me to do because I felt like my blood was "poison" for me...but figured someone with a normal functioning thyroid could handle my excess T4 and T3. I read and followed all American Red Cross guidelines for donating so as not to cause harm to anyone else or myself). I also started with least invasive to most invasive treatments, those that felt right to me even if I had never tried them before and even if my doctors didn't think they would work. I had an excellent experience with reiki and learned more about chakras (because as I read about the endocrine system I noticed that they totally align with chakras...coincidence?). I began talk therapy and found I had a lot of things I needed to get out. (The need to talk about something can "mess up" your throat chakra, thereby affecting thyroid).

I also felt incredibly self-conscious about doing all of these things that others (and myself) might not think are "real" or credible. But ultimately, I did what felt right and listened to my inner voice...the strong one, not the self-conscious one.

I am happy to say I have had a normal functioning thyroid without ever having pills, radiation or surgery. It was not easy because I felt like absolute crap for a few months, was totally freaked about "thyroid storm" and wanted something to just "fix me quick."

So, again, I don't have any specific advice on what you should do...but whatever it is...it is entirely up to you. If you don't trust a doctor or practitioner or feel that someone is not listening or understanding your concerns...go to someone who will listen and treat you accordingly. It is your body and you have the right to learn as much as you can or want to about it.

Best to you!

~M.C. Turtle

Oh I'm so glad the celiac test was normal, phew!

And I just thought of something else- did you by any chance have a really bad sore throat, but very low down in the throat, within a month or so before getting tested? If you did, you might want to mention that to the doctor. Sometimes, the thyroid can get infected by a virus and it can make things really wonky for a few months afterwards, going hyper and then hypo, as it recovers. (it's called thyroiditis, although there can be many causes, but the virus is the most benign) Usually things go back to normal within a few months, if this happened to be it.

If the numbers are suddenly wacky, I'd suggest getting your labs redrawn. Mistakes happen.