Doctor gave keto the nod

[Minotaur]

My lipids blood work improved GREATLY!

Triglycerides came down from 250 to 114. They have never been that low. In fact they were as high as mid 300s on a traditional higher carb diet, as recently as a year ago. VLDL and HDL are both in range; previously HDL was too low and VLDL was too high. LDL and total cholesterol are still a little high. But she wasn't too concerned. My goal is to get LDL down. I think I may need a thyroid med. adjustment for that.

I told her I am doing "Atkins" (just easier to explain); she looked at me, and motioned like "well, OK" approvingly.

[daddarioc]

Sweet, congrats!

[BeejGrpA]

i dont usually talk to doctors about nutrition coz they're not nutritionists, but thats great to hear man keep up the good werk.

[PyroBurns]

WOW your triglycerides were 300?! I would be scared to death.

Great work btw.

[carbotoo]

My lipids blood work improved GREATLY!I told her I am doing "Atkins" (just easier to explain); she looked at me, and motioned like "well, OK" approvingly.

i tell my doc that i'm doing "south beach", he likes the sound of that because of the emphasis on lean protein. he turns pale if i mention high fats.

dang, great news and thanks for the bloodwork update! someone else posted that they'd experienced similar results. i'm due for a test this spring, and hope that the numbers look this good. (i'm at the one year point next month).

[Minotaur]

Thanks.

Once before when I did keto my trigs came way down. I told the doc (endocrinologist, trained in Europe) what I was doing, and she approved. Then I went back to a traditional diet and my trigs skyrocketed. This is the second time my trigs have come down on keto. And I'm staying here.

My point is that I've now seen the results other people have talked about with keto.

[carbotoo]

My point is that I've now seen the results other people have talked about with keto.

not me, not yet. it will be a GREAT relief to see some improvement in my numbers (not that they're bad - i just don't know). have never felt better though.

[rusrious]

Good deal bro.. I seen you have a thyriod issue, Im hypo also.. I take 112 mcg of Levothyroxine daily.. I started the keto 8 days ago.. I feel prety darn good..

My thyriod was knocked out with radiation..

Really cool to see that your tests are awesome..

Keep it up bro..

[phabphour20]

My lipids blood work improved GREATLY!

Triglycerides came down from 250 to 114. They have never been that low. In fact they were as high as mid 300s on a traditional higher carb diet, as recently as a year ago. VLDL and HDL are both in range; previously HDL was too low and VLDL was too high. LDL and total cholesterol are still a little high. But she wasn't too concerned. My goal is to get LDL down. I think I may need a thyroid med. adjustment for that.

I told her I am doing "Atkins" (just easier to explain); she looked at me, and motioned like "well, OK" approvingly.

Nice man. I got my lipid results yesterday too and they were also vastly improved. Trigs from 160 or so to 77. My LDL and total cholesterol were also a little high by my doc's standards, but I managed to double my HDL to 34 from 17. I was happy. He wants me to get the tests done again in 3 months, so I am excited to see if there are any changes in that time.

He asked me what I was doing to lose the weight (about 35 pounds lighter than my last physical a few years ago). I responded... "lifting weights and eating a cyclical ketogenic diet." He gave me a blank look and continued giving me an EKG, etc. I tried to explain... low carb, carb load period for a day or so... no response.

Then we sat down in his office for the "consultation" part of my physical. He talked about my blood test results and my total cholesterol being a bit high. He then passed me a sheet of paper telling me what to eat and what not to eat. Eat mostly grains, fruits and vegetables. If you are going to eat meat, eat lean meat. Basically avoid all fats excluding Omega-3s. It wasn't worth discussing, so I just took the paper and left, thinking to myself: "I am basically going to do the opposite, we'll see what happens."

Again, awesome job fixing up your numbers. Especially the trigs, rock on.

-PP

[Minotaur]

Thanks all. Best of luck to you guys too.

[IronIc]

Frank, I posted my stats a few weeks ago. My numbers are great. Alot of it's from eating cleaner over the past 9 months or so, but Keto does not hurt

[Kidd123]

can someone explain how keto lowers cholestrol especially with all these eggs.

also with eating all this fat does it clog your arteries.

any health risks due to keto

[Minotaur]

I for one am not sure of the mechanism by which keto lowers cholesterol in most people. However I think it can be said it generally doesn't raise it. Mine fluctuates between 180-220 regardless of what I eat. I am also on metformin for blood sugar control; I am hypothyroid; and I am on testosterone replacement. These all may have to do with cholesterol, which the liver manufactures. And there may be a genetic component. My brother, whose cholesterol was always through the roof, avoided fat like the plague. So I want to hear someone explain that. There's no evidence that dietary cholesterol affects serum cholesterol. And it's the combination of fat and carbs that contribute to clogged arteries.

That being said, it's the carbs that raise triglycerides. My doctors acknowledge that. But in light of that, why doctors tell you to watch your fats is a mystery to me. Old Boy med school memes?

Take the aforementioned brother... his trigs were also astronomical in number. He doesn't smoke, was active (retired construction worker), ate low fat, but... lots of carbs... pasta, bread. Hey, we're Italians. \/\/ And he had a mild heart attack come years back, so did my other brother (he has stents).

Btw, congratulations Penney. I think I pointed you towards keto?

[Modian]

LDL and total cholesterol are still a little high. But she wasn't too concerned. My goal is to get LDL down. I think I may need a thyroid med. adjustment for that.

can someone explain how keto lowers cholestrol especially with all these eggs.

also with eating all this fat does it clog your arteries.

Both Taubes and Dr. Eades say it's not the count that is important, it's the size of the LDL particle. Large, fluffy particles are good, small and dense are bad. What clogs your arteries are the smaller, denser LDL particles, not all LDL particles by themselves. The fluffy LDL particles just bounce along and never stick to the artery walls. This explains why people with low cholesterol can still get heart disease and have heart attacks, and people with high aren't necessarily guaranteed to.

Dr. Eades recently blasted a study on low-carb vs. high-carb where the results the researchers presented didn't match the data. It might give you more information on your recent lipids test as well.

First, we can see that total and LDL- cholesterol didn?t do much on the low-carb diet whereas both dropped on the low-fat diet. This is nothing that hasn?t been seen a thousand times before in other studies. It?s been known forever that reducing fat in the diet brings about a reduction in total and LDL- cholesterol. But it does so at a cost. The cost is that although the LDL-cholesterol level falls, the particles themselves convert to the smaller, denser type that are more atherogenic.

...

If we look at our two groups of subjects in this study, we find that in the VLCHF group the LDL-cholesterol didn?t change much and neither did the apoB. Therefore we can pretty much say that the diet didn?t really affect the LDL-cholesterol particle size. If we look at the HCLF group, however, we see a different picture. In the subjects following the low-fat diet LDL-cholesterol levels fell while apoB numbers stayed the same. This means that there are the same number of particles as before but they became smaller after 24 weeks of low-fat dieting. In other words, the low-fat diet converted the LDL-particles into the more dangerous smaller, denser type.

The blog post is here - http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/l...bs-and-lipids/

[Minotaur]

Good info... thanks.

Second, the HDL-cholesterol went up by almost 20 percent and the triglycerides dropped by over 40 percent on the low-carb diet. These same values changed but slightly in those on the low-fat diet.

In my opinion (and the opinion of many others) the lipid parameters of most value in determining risk for heart disease are triglyceride levels and HDL levels. In fact an important index of risk is the triglyceride to HDL ratio (TGL/HDL): the lower the better.

In my case triglycerides went down almost 50%; HDL went up almost 30%; VLDL dropped almost 50%; but total cholesterol went from 188-222 (normal <200); LDL went from 107-154 (normal <99). But again, these might not mean anything, and they are not that out of whack.

[Modian]

I'd compare your apoB numbers if you have them and do the calculation he does. I bet yours went from small to fluffy.

In any case, the triglyceride drop and HDL raise percentages are kick ass! Good job.

[Minotaur]

Thanks... what's apoB?

As far as the trig to HDL ratio, I'm not sure about the calc, but they are 114:45.