Low carb and lipids

[razztazz]

[QUOTE=audreyh1;2279847]There are lots of videos on the web discussing LDL and low carb/ketogenic diets. I suggest you start searching. Dr. Diamond has several good recorded lectures on the topic, and he is not the only one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hj7ldyKQnRA

Is it just me or does this guy sound like Norm MacDonald?

[DeborahB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Just for the record, the cholesterol in what you eat has nothing to do with the cholesterol in your blood.

+1

[DeborahB]

The old wisdom was that cholesterol you ate raised your blood cholesterol. This has mostly been disproven in various studies but the info is suspicious because it goes against the old theories. When I ate very low carb/Keto, my blood profile improved amazingly. A lot of people have had the same experience. I eat high fat and low carb, and I mean HIGH fat. And it isn’t olive oil

[82-T/A]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HenryD It doesn't matter for most people, something like 75%. I haven't consumed a significant amount of dietary cholesterol in 2.5 years and my numbers, while trending down, have not changed dramatically.

I guess I just want to know what I "should" be doing then. Again, I'm not trying to be controversial like bringing up global warming, or discussing something so incredibly sensitive such as whether to take Social Security early, or later... God no... I'd never go down that road (hahah)... but I do want to do better, and my doctor told me to cut back on red meat and focus more on eating vegetables and fiber.



I consider myself a fairly healthy guy, my blood pressure is great, and I'm not incredibly overweight (about 15 pounds, but I'm 6'3"... I'm 220), but I just want to understand what I'm reading here?

[Dalmore]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 82-T/A I'm not trying to make trouble here, but literally every website I go to that says "foods to avoid to lower cholesterol" it states red meat / dairy / bacon / eggs, etc.

As a mammal, your body produces cholesterol. Your body needs quite a lot of it to replace cells and keep existing cells healthy. Your brain uses nearly 30% of the cholesterol that they body generates. That is why there are so many complaints regarding the side effect of Statin - muscle pain and memory loss.

Your body will self regulate how much cholesterol it needs and will compensate for any dietary cholesterol you should ingest. To a point. If you are ingesting more cholesterol than you body needs and would naturally produce, then you are going to raise your blood serum numbers. And logically at that point, reducing your intake will lower your numbers to their natural levels.

Statins are big business, and much of what the manufacturers claim is untrue. Do you remember a couple of years back when they tried to claim that children as young as 10 years old should be put on statins? They got enough backlash, they backed away from that market strategy.

The story around cholesterol is slowly changing. It isn't the Big Bad Wolf that everyone was told it was. Cholesterol build up is the symptom not the cause of heart disease. Cholesterol builds up in the arteries because of damage to the cell walls. It is repairing the damage caused by inflammation or injury. The groups at highest risk for heart disease are smokers and diabetics. C-reactive protein levels are higher for both groups.

[Red Badger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlyBirdly "For me, sugar is the poison but I am addicted to chocolate." ALDI has an excellent Dark Chocolate ( the "good for you chocolate" with proven health benefits). Low sugar, high fiber, full of antioxidants. 85 % Cacao. $1.99 for five .88 ounce bars. Can't beat it, but you may need to adjust to the less than "gooey-sweet" taste at first. They also have a good 70% dark chocolate, but the sugars are higher and the fiber is lower, if you need to go a little sweeter to adjust your taste buds initially. Unless you already LIKE the dark stuff. I sure do. " 1. Moser Roth 85% Cocoa Dark Chocolate, $1.99 for 4.4 ounces Moser Roth is Aldi’s premium brand of chocolates and it has WON AWARDS, you guys. And fancy chocolate tasters almost always approve of the stuff — especially once the price tag is revealed. These bars, which are technically made up of five smaller, individually wrapped bars, come in a few varieties (milk, dark sea salt, mint, milk truffle crunch, etc.), but this 85 percent cocoa option is my favorite. It’s rich, indulgent, and doesn’t taste over-roasted the way other dark chocolates can. And it’s just $2! " https://www.thekitchn.com/aldi-best-chocolates-263049

Guess its off to Aldi today. My before bed time treat - 2 glasses of red wine and a modest amount of dark chocolate.

[Golden sunsets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Just for the record, the cholesterol in what you eat has nothing to do with the cholesterol in your blood.

+1

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 82-T/A Is this like a global warming debate?

No, it's more like a sectarian dispute between religious factions.

Seriously though, I suspect you've mainly been reading outdated information, since that's the vast majority of what's available.

[Golden sunsets]

I've been on a ketogenic diet for 10 weeks. I also coincidentally had a lipid panel done after the first five weeks of the diet. HDL was up LDL was down and trigs were down.

To the OP. You might want to do some research and try the keto diet for a period of time and retest. You'd lower your protein intake a bit and increase your fat intake. Essentially your only carbs would come from veggies. One benefit of the ketogenic diet, is you will never be hungry.

[JAGOTI]

The "cholesterol" mania is, in my opinion, akin to the "low fat" mania that made America massively obese over the past 40 or so years. The medical industry loves obese, sick, drug consumers. It's wildly profitable!

Unless you've already had a heart attack, I wouldn't worry about it.

My advice: Keep doing strength exercises and stay active. Eat "real food". Be present in the moment. Enjoy life!

[bmcgonig]

I've done research on it. I've read Gerry Reaven's original paper about the ratio. I've read Ivor Cummins ( the Fat Emperor) book about it, and I follow a load of discussions on Twitter. Problem is there's so much controversy.

As an eg there seems to be huge agreement that low carb should be good for diabetes. Hundreds of people have tried it and possibly reversed T2D. Yet some endos well swear up and down it's a terrible idea. Similar to the statin wars.

Don't want to follow the new advice and find out eventually that the old advice was right after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister I have had very high total cholesterol and LDL all my life. But very low triglycerides and HDL with terrific ratios, so no, it doesn't bother me at all. It worries some doctors but not others, since there are some positive aspects to it, especially as you get older. You should do some research into it.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmcgonig Don't want to follow the new advice and find out eventually that the old advice was right after all.

Perfectly understandable.

That's why many of us have experimented on ourselves with different approaches to see what works for us. If you're not prepared to do that, you'll never know, will you?

[PatrickA5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 82-T/A I guess I just want to know what I "should" be doing then. Again, I'm not trying to be controversial like bringing up global warming, or discussing something so incredibly sensitive such as whether to take Social Security early, or later... God no... I'd never go down that road (hahah)... but I do want to do better, and my doctor told me to cut back on red meat and focus more on eating vegetables and fiber. I consider myself a fairly healthy guy, my blood pressure is great, and I'm not incredibly overweight (about 15 pounds, but I'm 6'3"... I'm 220), but I just want to understand what I'm reading here?

You should do a search on statins here. You'll see that it's "almost" as bad as the Social Security threads when it comes to what/who to believe. The last one got shut down. Do your own research. Discuss what you find out with your doctor.

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 82-T/A I'm not trying to make trouble here, but literally every website I go to that says "foods to avoid to lower cholesterol" it states red meat / dairy / bacon / eggs, etc. Is this like a global warming debate? Or am I totally misunderstanding all of these websites that say to cut back on these things to lower your bad cholesterol

As others have said, there is a lot of outdated, bad information out there about cholesterol, among other things. More recent studies tend to contradict a lot of this bad information. Here is a short article that summarizes some of the evolution in our thinking about dietary cholesterol, blood cholesterol, and heart disease:

https://reason.com/2018/09/22/new-re...t-cholesterol/

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets To the OP. You might want to do some research and try the keto diet for a period of time and retest. You'd lower your protein intake a bit and increase your fat intake. Essentially your only carbs would come from veggies. One benefit of the ketogenic diet, is you will never be hungry.

I generally agree with this, except that the keto diet is a pretty drastic change for people that have been consuming 150-200g of carbs daily. IMO, it's not really necessary to drop your carb intake from that level down to below 50g daily to see how that affects your health and blood lipid numbers. Just speaking for me personally, I eat probably close to 100g of carbs daily, which is definitely not keto, but it's also not nearly as high in carbs as a lot of Americans eat. At that level of carb consumption, my blood lipids are about where I want them to be, so I don't see the need to drop further into a keto-type diet. My weight is not an issue..........if you are trying to lose weight, then a lower level of carb consumption may be appropriate.

The main thing, I think, is to simply cut your consumption of processed foods, and focus on eating mostly whole/real foods, and see what that does to your blood test numbers (and how you feel). Chances are, if you do that, you will feel better, and your blood test lipid numbers will be fine. Stay away from foods packaged in a box with a long list of ingredients on the side, and eat mostly things like fish, eggs, meat, vegetables, healthy fats (butter, coconut oil, olive oil). Stay away from anything with added sugar. If you do these things, your health and blood lipids will probably be good, and you can avoid taking drugs like statins (which have many undesirable side effects).

[Golden sunsets]

I don't disagree, but for someone using keto to lose weight, I believe keto will achieve a better result. I've lost 12 pounds so far. My goal is 17-20, so 5-8 more. I will achieve a bmi of 22-23 at that goal weight. Once I get there, I will increase carbs somewhat. I always find maintenance to be the hardest part of a sustained diet. However I've always had the longest sustained weight loss (years at desired weight and bmi), when I went on a low carb diet.

[audreyh1]

Ketogenic diet is good for reversing metabolic disease, as it brings insulin levels way down and drops triglycerides dramatically. Really helps with Type 2 diabetes and corrects fatty liver very quickly. Insulin resistance starts to gradually reverse. Weight loss is kind of a side effect - as the low insulin levels let fat cells release stored fat, and hunger is minimized.

If you don’t have metabolic disease/insulin resistance then simply eating low carb without ketosis will still give benefits.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 82-T/A I'm not trying to make trouble here, but literally every website I go to that says "foods to avoid to lower cholesterol" it states red meat / dairy / bacon / eggs, etc. Is this like a global warming debate? Or am I totally misunderstanding all of these websites that say to cut back on these things to lower your bad cholesterol

I’m not going to look for a lot of references but the second entry on a Google search is the Mayo Clinic’s take on the question. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...l/faq-20058468

The problem seems to be that outdated recommendations persist on the net and in popular perception. The same with recommendations to avoid fat but eat lots of pasta. At least that one is fading.

[audreyh1]

It's amazing. So many websites talk about reversing insulin resistance. And what do they recommend?

Lose weight. Exercise regularly. Reduce stress. Get more sleep. Cut out junk food. Eat whole foods - the usual suspects.

Almost none of them mention the elephant in the room: attack insulin resistance = reduce insulin by severely cutting carbohydrates! (or by intermittent fasting, but even then low carb is recommended). I think only a couple of sites mentioned it - and even then it was buried way down in the article. Most sites only talked about eating "healthy food" (whatever that means) and no junk food.

And if you are insulin resistant and/or diabetic (type 2), how are you supposed to lose any weight on a high-carb diet anyway?

I mean - my God! This is a huge epidemic in our country, and most sites just don't even want to mention carbohydrate restriction as a very straightforward approach, the first step, that will also help immensely with the other recommendations?

It is ignorance? Is it willful ignorance? This just makes me think of the insanity definition: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff I’m not going to look for a lot of references but the second entry on a Google search is the Mayo Clinic’s take on the question. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-...l/faq-20058468

That Mayo clinic article is still telling you to

Quote:

Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends eating only 100 to 300 milligrams (mg) of cholesterol a day depending on your caloric level. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one large egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol — all of which is found in the yolk.

The US Dietary Guidelines dropped that recommendation in 2015, announcing that "dietary cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern."

This article was published in April, 2018 - several years after the 2015 Dietary Guideline revisions explicitly dropping all dietary cholesterol limits. Yet Mayo Clinic staff persist in publishing old recommendations that have since had significant changes.