I have some questions about my latest blood work results. I was told that I had a 50/50 chance of developing heart disease.
These are my results
glucose 88 mg/dL
total cholesteral 188 mg/dL
HDL 38 mg/dL
LDL 128 mg/dL
VLDL 22 mg/dL
Triglyceride 111 mg/dL
chol/HDL ratio 4.9
The Nurse that covered these results with me told me that I was eating to much protien per day. I had stated that I eat 6 times a day, ensuring I had a good mix of protiens and carbs at each meal. Mostly chicken, eggs whites, and turkey as my main source of protien. He stated that the body only needed about 20 grams of protien a day. At that point I tuned him out(I think I have read that it is either .75 grams per pound bodywieght or .75 grams per kG, either way that is a lot more than he was recommending) and did not really pay attention to what else he had to say.
Once I got home I did some research online and found out that while my ldl is on the high end and my hdl is on the low end, it did not seem as bad as 50/50 chance(but I could be wrong). Since then I have started to supplement with Omega-3 fish oils to raise my HDL. My questions to you, what else can I do to lower my LDL and get a better chol/HDL ratio? Should I ignore the chol/HDL ratio and just be looking at the total cholesteral?
Any insight on this would be appreciated
Bump
I would also like to get some info on this. My doc told me I need to lower my colesterol in three months with diet/exercise or I be on meds. He told me to eat oatmeal everyday which I recently started doing anyway. Hopefully it helps.
I would recommend checking out the book entitled The Cholesterol Myths. Heart disease and cholesterol levels don’t have nearly as much to do with each other as those drug-peddling companies say.
There’s no way they can guarantee you’ll never have a heart attack, right? So a 50/50 chance is like saying “You’ll either get heart disease, or you won’t.” Well, Thank You Captain Obvious. OK, so it would be great if they could tell you it’s more likely than not that you won’t have heart disease, but again, could they guarantee that even if they said it?
Check out the thread called High Cholesterol. I am in a similar position with a 15% risk in 10 years. I have just started the regime that Scottl has recommended for me.I will get back to everyone in 3 months.
Nobby
“He stated that the body only needed about 20 grams of protien a day” is not correct even by “conventional” nutritional standards, so the person giving that advise is suspect.
Each person is different, and I’ve clarified by PM my thoughts for Nobby, and reasons for the recommendations I gave Nobby in the other thread. Those are general supplementation recommendations, not something specific to reduce cholesterol. They contain antioxidants which will reduce the change for oxidation of e.g. LDL and it is oxidized LDL which does (some of) the damage.
In your case, your total cholesterol is fine, your LDL is a little high (<100 is best), and you HDL is a low. Raising HDL is very tough, but one other way to consider is cardio e.g. 20 min at your target heartrate 4-5 times/week. A reasonable target heartrate= (220-age) X 0.75.
Reduce your intake of saturated fats (pick lean meats, egg whites). Replace your current fat calories with omega-3’s (salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, walnuts, fish oil, pumpkin seeds) and monounsaturated fats (extra-virgin olive oil, all nuts). Let monounsaturated fats dominate your fat intake. Improving your cardiovascular system helps a great deal also by running.
[quote]veravazq wrote:
Reduce your intake of saturated fats (pick lean meats, egg whites). Replace your current fat calories with omega-3’s (salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, walnuts, fish oil, pumpkin seeds) and monounsaturated fats (extra-virgin olive oil, all nuts). Let monounsaturated fats dominate your fat intake. Improving your cardiovascular system helps a great deal also by running.[/quote]
You have no clue of what you’re talking about. You need to read Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov as he does an excellent job of explaining why those cholesterol studies went wrong. Your advice on avoiding saturated fat and cholesterol doesn’t work very well. We need them for our health and also produce testesterone. Having high cholesterol has no direct correlation with heart disease at all. It’s only natural that it goes up as we age due to its antioxidant properties on our arteries. In fact, it is the trans fat that we have to worry about. There are also others that can contribute heart disease but not cholesterol and saturated fat. Trying to lower cholesterol can actually cause health problems, shorten your life AND CAUSE MORE HEART ATTACKS! If you want to blame health problems on something, just blame on refined vegetable oils and refined/unrefined sugars/grains (see Nutrition and physical degeneration by Weston A price).
I wouldn’t worry too much about the cholesterol level at all. There’s no harm in eating whole eggs. PM me if you want more information on cholesterol. I can lead you to some websites. Basically, it’s the manmade food that is causing heart disease. I’m talking about vegetable oils, pizza, ice cream, sodas, candies, and a very long list but not beef or eggs. It’s already been proven but those nurses and doctors haven’t caught up or too ignorant to listen or no common sense at all.