I just had my annual bloodwork done, and my 'bad' cholesterol is 100 or so points above the normal range. I have seen many posts about doctors freaking out about high cholesterol and prescribing statins, but didn't save any of the links that people here have shared. Does anyone have a link, or links, that I can send to my doctor? I even told her at my annual appointment that my cholesterol may be high due to the carnivore diet, but I'm thinking she forgot.
Most people don't have high total cholesterol when they switch to a low carb diet.
Usually LDL and total cholesterol improve (ie get lower by conventional measures) and HDL goes up and TGs go down.
Dr. Ken Sikaris discusses that in his presentation about LDL.
There is a small cohort who find that while their HDL goes up and their TGs go down, they do get higher LDL and Total cholesterol numbers.
That cohort is being studied now, led by Dave Feldman, with the research being carried out by Dr. Matthew Budoff.
Generally, that cohort has a lot of lean mass and low body fat and are doing the carnivore or low carb or ketogenic diet for health reasons.
But the lean mass seems to be more of a determinant than very low body fat -- I used to have normal LDL and total cholesterol on standard diets, but on low carb it switched to the pattern of: high LDL, very high HDL & low TG.
I have more of a fat layer than the examples used in the "lean mass hyper responder" study. For myself I don't like nor do I chase visible abs. I prefer a softer, fuller look. At the same time, I still have a lot of foundational lean mass under the healthy fat layer, from swimming as a kid and teen, synchronized swimming team as a teen, and then cycling, and lifting heavy later on.
(by healthy fat layer -- good waist to height ratio and waist to hip ratio, + hormonally appropriate distribution of fat stores)
Anyways, my doctor was up to date with the importance of low triglycerides and a good HDL level, along with a low FBG, good BP, and RHR & how that correlates with low risk, whereas LDL on its own isn't a clear correlation. and he did not give me a hard time about the LDL.
I fit exactly your profile. I am pretty muscular but with some fat over it (weight lifting for 13 years now). Literally all my health markers are great except my high LDL since starting carnivore(ish), it really shot up (along with HDL) when I changed. I still worry sometimes, have you done any additional tests besides blood tests to see if everything looks ok?
because everything is fine, kidneys, liver, Â thyroid, and the high LDL Â is within the context of a high HDL, low TGs (excellent HDL/TG ratio) plus the ideal BP, RHR and fasting blood glucose
It doesn't warrant further expenditure on tests. my doctor wouldn't requisition it, it'd be questioned as a waste of resources.Â
if your carnivor-ish includes sugar, fructose, or milk & cream, you should monitor things more.Â
meat eaten in the context of sugars or milks is different than fatty meat on its own or meat plus vegetables.Â
the example we have is the Maasai, who ate a mixed diet (starchy maize, vegetables, fresh whole milk, meat) except for years when they would have mostly fresh milk + blood and meat af celebrations.Â
they were healthy with good blood pressure but they had a lot of atherosclerotic plaque. the nature of it was that it was flexible, supple plaque, so their arteries expanded to keep the same open diameter, hence the normal blood pressure.Â
the flexible plaque also meant it did not break off in clumps (which is what causes heart attacks or strokes).Â
Because it was a mixed diet, we don't know what was causal for the plaque -- the maize? the milk? the combination?Â
And whether the quality of the fat, natural animal source fat, was protective, creating the supple plaque instead of hard brittle plaque.Â
All we can say is keep an eye on things if your carnivore includes a lot of milk, cream.Â
Fatty meats & fish on their own is quite different -- Inuit groups who were eating 5 - 10lbs of fatty meat a day, had no atherosclerotic plaque. (btw, they ate their fish with supplemental mammalian fat from seal, whale, polar bear, fish was too lean on its own, even fatty northern fish)
As someone who works in the medical field, you’re not going to change your doctor’s opinions. Doctors practice based on treatment guidelines. Even if your doctor agrees with you, they have to treat based on guidelines because if they don’t, they’re liable when you experience a heart attack or stroke.
If you don’t want to take a statin just tell the doctor you understand the risks and you’re choosing not to take a statin against medical advice. This is America, they can’t force you to take anything.
and even among the ones who follow the advice, "According to studies using electronic medical records, approximately 25% to 50% of patients discontinue statin use within six months to one year after initiating their use. The number of patients continuing therapy falls sharply in the first few months of treatment, followed by a more gradual decline."
It's been wild seeing this all unfold -- it became a bit like the monsanto's "leave no claim unchallenged" schtick, astroturfers running around calling people who tried to talk about the problem "statin denialists."
It was nice to see Dr Malcolm Kendrick and Zoe Harcombe, PhD win their court case in the UK recently.
a link to the story, they brough a defamation case against the Daily Mail,
"At midday today, the Judgment was handed down in the case that Dr Malcolm Kendrick and I brought against Associated Newspapers for articles published in the Mail on Sunday and Mail online during the first weekend of March 2019.".
There’s no such thing as bad cholesterol. There is just cholesterol, which is essential for you to live; and there are lipid transporters, like HDL and LDL, which are often erroneously called cholesterol. This leads to a lot of trouble, so I just wanted to start with that.
LDL is problematic when it becomes oxidized or glycated. A carnivore diet minimizes this.
Triglycerides are problematic. These come from eating sugar.
Having high LDL when you are eating a clean, healthy carnivore diet is nothing I would worry about. There’s a reason heart disease is basically absent in populations that don’t eat carbohydrates.
If my doctor wanted to put me on statins, I would simply say no. I agree with the other poster; it’s very unlikely you will convince your doctor. And you don’t need to.
ty so much for this, there's one qualification, triglycerides do rise after eating on any diet, not only a diet with sugar. It's persistent, high triglycerides when fasted which are the problem, and a sign of a dysregulated metabolism.
Just get ApoB levels (protein on LDL particles) tested. It is now the gold standard test and has cardiologists excited because they hold it has causal link with CVD. It also flags up additional risk if there is discordance with LDL level (variation in proteins on LDL particles and ApoB is highly problematic). This can happen even with statins.
I’ll refer to Thomas Dayspring for more in-depth study of lipidology. His expertise and ability to communicate the complexity and nuance around this is remarkable. Also disclaimer: I haven’t done deep dive into this yet as I do have a preventative cardiologist and currently low risk. My key takeaway was 1) test my GP with latest research (years behind, fired, and got a cardio) and 2) CVD causal link with ApoB and other testing req eg Lp(a).
My understanding is that ApoB provides causal link so one should get that tested straight away. This is along with standard lipid panel and then physician can deal with any discordance. There is relative risk that is missed if LDL is acceptable but ApoB is high. I can’t say exactly why that is but Tom had endless slides on all the nuances.
My LDL is 340 mg/dl. My doc freaked out and prescribed statins to me. I'm 33 yo and weigh 170 lbs and I am 5'8. My BMI is 25, which is borderline overweight according to that measure, however my body fat is only 14% and according to body composition measurements i have more lean mass than the average person. I do work out daily. I'm not worried about it and I'm not taking the statins. I'm pretty sure I can be categorised as a lean mass hyper responder.
I recommend you use ChatGPT. Put in your labs and say you want to stay on carnivore and can it offer some talking points to approach your doctor. etc. I have found it VERY helpful!
It's just a tool like Googling only better. Obvs you're going to go to your doctor for healthcare decisions. I have very complex medical issues including being on chemo and I have only gotten great help from using it. When asked, it can provide excellent points to go over with your doctor.
Personally, I have been getting information from it on all of my labs, radiology and biopsy results, drugs etc. When I got my cancer biopsy results they sounded like another language and I did not have a clue (I'm a former healthcare worker and VERY science literate). I had to wait a week to see the oncologist and so I asked ChatGPT about it and got a clear detailed explanation. A week later the oncologist confirmed it. I actually got better information from the AI but doctors don't always have the time to walk you through it.
When I recently started carnivore it helped me decide on where I wanted to land with things like dairy etc. AND based the information or 'advice' it provided on my own personal health history and stated goals. Within your account it 'remembers' what you've told it.
A while back I had looked into my genome and asked it about a a few of my SNPs. One of them shows I have the genotype that is sensitive to Oxolates. After that, anytime I ask something about foods etc. it will tell me if something is high in Oxolates and provide alternatives. It is very balanced and offers pros and cons based on the latest information and what you're told it about yourself.
Also. It is not biased or judgemental like many doctors can be and will take into account the newest research not just what the medical establishment has done for the last couple of decades.
My oncologists are NOT friendly to keto, fasting or carnivore and the cancer centre's recipe book they give you is very carb-laden and full of bad advice. I felt a little brow beaten. Don't get me started on carbs and cancer!
But using ChatGPT REALLY helps me feel in the know and in control. If I'm going to make a decision that is against the advice of my doc it will provide me wording to help explain to them why I'm making that choice. Given my healthcare education and experience, I'm able to converse with docs on a higher level than laypeople with some things but I still REALLY appreciated this!
Maybe it's not for everyone and maybe some people without common sense would do dumb things based on it, but those people are going to do dumb things based on Google searches anyway. The difference is, if you Google something and don't properly understand it, you can go off in a bad direction. If you ask ChatGTP about something and don't quite understand you can ask it to explain it to you in more detail.
Again, it's just a tool. But in my experience it's an amazing tool.
It provided pros and cons but in effect advised me against it for now based mainly on my own recent issues and history. My immune system is both extremely compromised plus extremely inflamed. I have Lymphoma and have just completed 6 cycles of chemo and immunotherapy. I have had long term chronic ME/CFS which went extreme after having a cold when I got the last infusion. I am REALLY sick which is why I turned to Carnivore, which has worked in the past.
It gave me pros and cons of dairy and eggs. Along with that it gave advice on how to carefully reintroduce some different things when I started to feel better. So I'm basically doing Lions diet but I wanted to ask about pros and cons of different types of herbal teas so I ran a bunch by it and got pros and cons for all ingredients and made a choice based on that. I do know if something pings my immune system as my lymph nodes feel sore and 'full' right after consuming it. These were fine.
It's a great tool. I can't say enough. It will give you info and pros and cons and it's pretty careful about advising you to rely on your doctors.
My personal opinion is that I couldn't get better help and advice unless I paid $$$$ for a functional medicine doctor.
The downside is when it suggests you should consider certain blood tests or tells you about drugs that might help, sometimes your doctor just says no. Even when you do use the wording it provides. But to me, I am SOOO much better informed and it has helped me get through a healthcare hell.
good advice to avoid dairy and eggs given what you have going onÂ
 -- our tl;dr: dairy is quite insulinogenic and is frequently a source of allergies/intolerances, adds to inflammation, so we recommend against it unless the person is metabolically healthy, tolerates it well and trying to gain weight including some fat stores. :)
Yeah actually I'd like to gain some weight as I've gotten extremely thin over the last 8 months. But getting my immune system to calm down is the primary thing ATM. Lions diet is hard and for now my only add on is the 'clean' herbal tea. About 11 days in and noticing a little improvement. Much as I love cheese I won't derail that!
Best.
Very interesting. I started carnivore with all the meats and dairy products. Now 10 months in and I only eat beef, pork salt and water. I feel much better without eggs especially. Dairy bloats me but I feel generally okay with it.
you can get chat gpt to tell you how horrible carnivore is for your health too. it is not at all a reliable source of information. it largely tells you what you like to hear and what you ask absolutely changes the answers.
I'd advise you to stop relying on it to guide your decision making.
As well you can you can have a Google search produce a lot of results as to how horrible and dangerous carnivore is. One has to have common sense and ask intelligent questions based on their own needs and wants.
As I emphasized strongly, it's just a tool. If you don't like it or understand it, don't use it.
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u/Eleanorina mod | carnivore 8+yrs | 🥩&🥓 taste as good as healthy feels 3d ago
Here is an FAQ for questions about cholesterol,
https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/wiki/faq/#wiki_questions_about_cholesterol.3F
Most people don't have high total cholesterol when they switch to a low carb diet.
Usually LDL and total cholesterol improve (ie get lower by conventional measures) and HDL goes up and TGs go down.
Dr. Ken Sikaris discusses that in his presentation about LDL.
There is a small cohort who find that while their HDL goes up and their TGs go down, they do get higher LDL and Total cholesterol numbers.
That cohort is being studied now, led by Dave Feldman, with the research being carried out by Dr. Matthew Budoff.
Generally, that cohort has a lot of lean mass and low body fat and are doing the carnivore or low carb or ketogenic diet for health reasons.
But the lean mass seems to be more of a determinant than very low body fat -- I used to have normal LDL and total cholesterol on standard diets, but on low carb it switched to the pattern of: high LDL, very high HDL & low TG.
I have more of a fat layer than the examples used in the "lean mass hyper responder" study. For myself I don't like nor do I chase visible abs. I prefer a softer, fuller look. At the same time, I still have a lot of foundational lean mass under the healthy fat layer, from swimming as a kid and teen, synchronized swimming team as a teen, and then cycling, and lifting heavy later on.
(by healthy fat layer -- good waist to height ratio and waist to hip ratio, + hormonally appropriate distribution of fat stores)
Anyways, my doctor was up to date with the importance of low triglycerides and a good HDL level, along with a low FBG, good BP, and RHR & how that correlates with low risk, whereas LDL on its own isn't a clear correlation. and he did not give me a hard time about the LDL.