Advice you should follow combined with more research on this.
And that concludes this discussion. 
Kenny Croxdale
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Consult your doctor. I do not give medical advice; the information below is merely me sharing my experience. Your body is your responsibility.
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I have a similar situation. In discussing this with my doctor, I refused to take a statin due to previous bad experience, in my case I had terrible cramps. Maybe I didn’t drink enough water.
The doc recommended I try supplementing with niacin, but he didn’t say how much. I tried 250 mg each morning and evening. Then I consulted WebMD. This site usually doesn’t give much credence to supplements, so I was amazed when I read that niacin was “Likely Effective for Abnormal levels of blood fats!” Apparently, you need to take Niacin rather than niacinamide; and be sure to read the whole article for caveats and other advice. Check other sources as well.
The surprise was the dose. According to WebMD:
" For high cholesterol : The effects of niacin are dose-dependent. Doses of niacin as low as 50 mg and as high as 12 grams each day have been used. However, the biggest increases in HDL and decreases in triglycerides occur at 1200 to 1500 mg/day. Niacin’s greatest effects on LDL occur at 2000 to 3000 mg/day. Niacin is often used with other medications for improving cholesterol levels."
Now, 2000 mg per day, which is what I take 1000 mg a.m. and p.m., is a s***load of niacin. And there are potential side effects. If you take high doses of niacin, be ready for “niacin flush,” a very real, but temporary and harmless sensation similar a bad sunburn on your head, neck, and shoulders.
I won’t be going to the doctor until mid-September, so I don’t know if this stuff works.
FWIW. The information is not intended to provide medical advice.
Please tell me more. I am a 17 year old with high LDL, but also HDL as well. I am doing a keto diet, so would this affect me? I eat lots of eggs too
@KennyCrox also feel free to add
bump cause i don t wanna die
You probably won’t right away.
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I have nearly identical numbers to the OP. 213 total cholesterol, 60 HDL, 131 LDL. My doctor is not worried. My cholesterol used to be 170 every year. Two years ago it jumped to 220. I made some dietary changes and it dropped back to 170. I told my doc what I did when I had my physical this year and my cholesterol jumped back to 213. The first thing she said was that my HDL was lower when the total was 170. She seems happier with my current numbers.
You’re on a keto diet which trashes your thyroid and slows down your metabolism.
Your cholesterol is therefore way too high because you’re eating too much with regards to your slow metabolism
I had really high cholesterol (over 250) and fixed it by taking these supplements:
- Red Yeast Rice
- Turmeric & Ginger Extract
- Garlic Extract (High Allicin)
- Niacin
I took those daily for a few months, and dropped both HDL and LDL down by over 75 points. Be careful with the Niacin though, it can cause a lot of flushing and tingly skin.
Hope this helps, man. Best of luck!
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Relationship of Your Blood Lipid Number
You previous number were probably better than you new number.
Your Total Cholesterol and LDL number alone is meaningless.
The two prime numbers of the greatest importance are your HDL and Triglycerides.
A drop in your HDL is something you want. A high HDL number as well as a low Triglyceride number indicate good cardiovascular health.
Two other number that are important is your Triglyceride:HDL Ratio and you Remnant Cholesterol Number.
Many physician don’t know how to interprets you blood lipid profile or they are just two lazy to do the math. Sound like your physician falls into one of those categories.
Kenny Croxdale
Knowing How to Read A Blood Profile
First of all, a drop in HDL is something you do NOT want.
To reiterate…
Your Total Cholesterol and LDL number alone is meaningless.
The two prime numbers of the greatest importance are your HDL and Triglycerides.
A drop in your HDL is something you want. A high HDL number as well as a low Triglyceride number indicate good cardiovascular health.
Two other number that are important is your Triglyceride:HDL Ratio and you Remnant Cholesterol Number.
Kenny Croxdale
Which one is it?
I suggest you should really stop posting and review human physiology before saying such crap while crapping all over MDs who most definitely will give more sensible recommendations compared to internet made lunatics.
Plus, make sure you’re consistent with HDL claims. A drop is NOT desirable. You’ve said the opposite twice. But more HDL isn’t necessarily better, HDL can be pro oxidant and pro inflammatory depending on the context. Plenty of studies on the matter.
As always with cholesterol, an elevation must make the patient wonder why it’s going up.
As always with human health, shooting for average numbers sounds reasonable enough. Typical 100- LDL, 40-60 HDL, and HDL higher than trigs
Example off the top of my head:
Risk was increased both in participants with low levels (less than 41 mg/dl) and very high levels (greater than 60 mg/dl) of HDL cholesterol, which produced a U-shaped curve when plotted graphically. Participants with HDL cholesterol levels greater than 60 mg/dl (1.5 mmol/L) had a nearly 50% increased risk of dying from a cardiovascular cause or having a heart attack compared to those with HDL cholesterol levels 41–60 mg/dl (1.1–1.5 mmol/L).
I don’t need to pull the mountain of evidence behind low LDL being healthier than sky high LDL
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Oh the irony
Utter nonsense.
Looks like you have no clue about ketosis and the thyroid but keep trying the condescending tone
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I guess scientists don’t know what they’re doing Changes of thyroid hormonal status in patients receiving ketogenic diet due to intractable epilepsy - PubMed
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I guess all studies like the one above are utter nonsense because your feelings say so
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I guess human physiology is utter nonsense
FYI hypothyroidism in children is not exactly common typically. But by all means, enjoy your high stress hormones diet.
An error on my part. A high HDL number is what you want.
Kenny Croxdale
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The Crap from MDs
The irony is that many physicians are spewing out this crap based on outdated research and data.
Patients
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The average patient has no clue what their numbers. All they know is that their doctor told them it was too high or too low.
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Patients are taught to only look at basically two numbers: Total Cholesterol and LDL. These stand alone number mean nothing.
Their value lies in knowing their relationship to other blood lipid profile numbers. Unfortunately, many physicians are fully up to speed on that information.
- Patients are unaware of the what drive those number up and down. Most aren’t willing to modify their life style to make a elicit a positive change.
Their attitude is hat it is easier to pop a pill rather than change their life style.
Unfortunately, Not At Times
Just because it sounds right, doesn’t mean it is right. “The devil is in the details”.
The information that I supplied provide a more accurate assessment of an individual cardiovascular health.
Actually, You Do
LDL alone tells you nothing. What you need to know is the percentage of LDL good Particle A and bad Particle B.
Individual with low LDL and a high percentage of LDL bad Particle B, have an issue.
Individual with high LDL and a high percentage of LDL good Particle A, have no issue.
I guess all studies like the one above are utter nonsense because your feelings say so
Evidently, that is you’re issue.
This concludes our discussion on this topic.
Kenny Croxdale
MD’s who stay current don’t care about total cholesterol anymore. My wife is a cardiologist and she has a 220 total cholesterol and HDL of 60 and is not concerned about trying to change those numbers “directly” though higher cholesterol can be a sign of inflammation but this would not be cause to try to lower it directly (on the contrary. I would just caution that cholesterol largely is a sign or response of the body, not a cause of pathology.
Artificially lowering LDL is not a good idea either. LDL rises when there is microvascular damage, as a mechanism to repair the microvascular damage. LDL should rise if there is microvascular damage. A good ratio generally means that repair is adequate but very high HDL can result from recycling of materials from high LDL sent to cells. Blood lipids are almost entirely signs rather than causes. Triglycerides are the result of insulin resistance and fatty liver. Just getting triglycerides down doesn’t address the problem, and neither does getting LDL down or HDL up or keeping HDL from getting above 60 as mentioned in the article-its just a sign of what’s been going on.
High LDL is a sign of a constant attempt to repair damage. LDL CAN become a cause in someone who has had chronic inflammation and blockages (calcium deposits) because at that point it can lead to blockages, but after an acute lesion, LDL supression actually prevents healing of the lesion. Later, if the inflammation is chronic LDL ends up being like putting too many band-aids on a wound. Heart disease development is likely due to inadequate LDL response in the early stages following an arterial lesion and excessive LDL response in the late stages which is why supressing cholesterol has only been shown to decrease heart attack rates in people who already show calcium deposits, or have had a heart attack.
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There is a difference between getting ketone production and “running on ketones”. This is why some people do more harm than good on a ketogenic diet. If you just get ketones up, you typically also have cortisol up (to make glucose) and other stress hormones up as well, but when the body switches over to using ketones in place of glucose, stress hormones staunch because the body stops trying to make glucose from protein for the brain, since the brain switches over to ketones.
Second, lowing T3 to T4 conversion does not equate to thyroid harm. That is like saying that lowering the pancreas insulin release harms the pancreas. T4 reduction on a keto adapted diet happens because T4 is not needed as much on a keto adapted diet. Problem again is people just eating low carb and supressing T4 but still being mostly glucose dependent and needing to process glucose. In the keto-adapted state, people have been found to require virtually zero blood sugar (<20 mg/dl) for normal brain function, a level that would kill someone running on glucose. Equating low thyroid activity to damage is non-sequitur, and the harms of low slow thyroid function listed in the article are harms that occur with low thyroid function in people running primarily on glucose.
I know many Doctors in modern medicine aren’t worried about high LDL because they subscribe to the idea that it’s all a okay to repair inflammation.
What about not causing inflammation in the first place, so that ugh, Lipids stay put?
Why do non westernized people have low cholesterol? Because they eat less. There’s nothing else - western people eat too much, MD or PhD or whatever.
Regarding the t3/T4 discussion, those are valid points - like I said, when you slow down metabolism that much and don’t rely on glucose to operate, your t3 drops. A ketogenic diet, which is a half decent survival diet, should therefore never be preferred to a normal diet if the goal is to optimize health. Note that a liver that’s properly fed with fructose/galactose/sugar, according to the caloric expenditures of a (hopefully) active and lean individual, will maintain healthy levels of glycogen thusly leading to nil amino acid breakdown. Gluconeogenesis and the rise of stress hormones are only a response to dumb, orthorexic, extremist sugar phobia
@mertdawg the one thing I’ve come to realize via our debates here and other lectures on various high quality PL oriented websites (aimed at helping naturals, as I’m not using anything anymore) is that, since I’m fairly sedentary in my new job living la vida desk jockey, I can stick to some fairly basic rules:
- 1g/lb protein, that’s a given
- 1g/lb carbs, mix of fruits and starches, mostly PWO and upon waking up when insulin sensitivity is high and liver glycogen stores are low
- fat = remainder of the calories up until TDEE is met. Mostly from plants tho. MCT could be an interesting supplement.
If LDL goes up, I’m fairly certain that it means I’m eating too much. Inuits operate below their TDEE and have ideal LDL while eating high fat. Ditto for the Masai.
I did have a hyper active user bias. Clearly eating 2+ grams of carbs per pound of body weight isn’t justified when sitting on my ass 9 hours a day and pumping 10ish hard sets per workout
Would you agree with the numbers above for a sedentary adult that lifts weights on the regular and does low intensity cardio?