Cholesterol

hoodlisa1979 wrote: »

herblovinmom wrote: »

hoodlisa1979 wrote: »

Just dropping in to update, I did have the repeat tests done at the 8 week mark but it takes forever to get results back, my cholesterol has gone up to 7.4, my HDL has reduced slightly and my LDL has also slightly reduced, I was gutted to say the least, despite following the NHS guides re foods to increase HDL it hasn't improved but worsened, I have lost 18lb now and I've read that levels can raise during weight loss but will have to wait a couple of weeks to speak to the doctor to check if thats the case, I suspect that they may just want me to take the medication, also just a note I'm in the UK and here we have to be practically dead for any referral for anything other than the basics in testing

Just catching up on the subject, I’m curious, what was the NHS recommendation to raise good cholesterol and lower the bad…🤔 my naturopath also gave me a recommended diet to follow to lower my cholesterol. I’d like to compare if possible.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-cholesterol/how-to-lower-your-cholesterol/

I have to say, I tried doing pretty much that for a year or so, trying to eat more in that way, but still not addressing my bodyweight. It had a small positive effect, more on triglycerides than on HDL/LDL if I recall correctly. Very small.

I reported my fairly fast blood test improvements in detail in a post on page 1 of this thread, so I won't rehash it. But for me, changing details of my eating patterns, while staying very active, but also staying fat . . . had very little positive impact.

Your situation may differ, especially if you have familial hypercholesterolemia (since I think I don't), if your starting point diet is substantially worse than mine was, if you are not active with exercise, etc. It's just my n=1, for what it's worth: Trying to improve the patterns in what I ate didn't accomplish much.

I have. I dropped 41 pounds and took my cholesterol from high (230) to normal (188) now. But it took me about 6 months. I didn't get blood work drawn through the process so it was responding quicker than 6 months. I have since lost 16 more pounds. Due to get blood work in a couple weeks. We'll see what happens. My doc told me she would no longer bug me to take cholesterol meds and that I am a good example of what diet and exercise can do. She did say that at some point as we get older sometimes diet and exercise can not always correct cholesterol and meds might be needed in the future but as it is, that is not the case. Diet and exercise most likely can lower your cholesterol. How much of it you can control is based on your family history to some extent though.