From Dr. Michael Eades blog:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=678

I firmly believe diet has very little to do with what your cholesterol numbers are.

OK, maybe they can change them by 5-10% or so, but I firmly believe that it is mostly heredity.

Yes, exercise will help out on the HDL side. Yes, maybe a few points down with better "diet".

But, I have observed anyone on any diet dropping weight will observe that their numbers go down while on a weight reducing diet regardless of the type of diet.

I also watched my wife's numbers when we did the famous "liquid" diet no food under MD supervision. My numbers were always good and dropped below 150 with fantastic ratio.

Her numbers barely got down to 200 with not so good ratios.

Heredity is the main reason and all this other stuff about diets, eggs, high fats, etc., etc. are all bunk IMHO.

If the Doctor knew how many eggs I have he would have a heart attack.

I think my GP may have read that (pharmaceutical) article. I read something from a different U of T researcher that says diet is as effective as a statin (30% reduction either way). Well the 2 mo test results are in tomorrow. One of us is in for a surprise.

I hope you post the results here!

Well I guess we will see.

I go for another blood work up in about 2-3 weeks now.

I have been blessed with good genes when it comes to cholesterol; that is why I say diet is very little. I am sure the stats will bear out the true story.

But eating the same foods and habits up until my low carb T2 diabetes days, I was always 180-190 total cholesterol and good ratio and my wife had to take two pills Lipitor and Zetia to get down to the same kind of numbers.

Genetics is the major player and yes you can vary it to some degree; 30% ???

Lets see.

Need to do more formal research on that.

If anyone, has an article or two to reference besides the bull that pharma's publish to "push" their products, then please do post the reference; no offense to anyone.

Ralph

There is a lot of discussion nowadays that, medical consensus aside, cholesterol level isn't well correlated with heart disease. Also there is no evidence that changing dietary cholesterol has any effect on the chances of developing heart disease.

You can google this type of information using the term 'cholesterol myth'. Barry Groves has a good site. A much more relevant marker for heart disease seems to be homocysteine.

Here are the results, about 79 days apart:

Jan 30 - April 19
BP ~142/90 - 138/88
Chol 186 – 151
HDL 36 – 36
LDL 122 – 102
TG 144 – 69
Chol/HDL 5.3 – 4.6 (risk ratio)
FG 128 – 101
Weight ~238 – 219

The only bad result is no change in BP.

Total cholesterol is -19%, none of it HDL. Compare that to David Jenkins' estimate of -30% in a controlled experiment (Portfolio Diet). Not too bad going from in vitro to in vivo.

The doctor put me on the lowest dosages of Metformin and Altace ramipril today, and I am to see him again in two weeks.

As for the great cholesterol debate, I think cholesterol numbers indicate whether you have a problem or not. I am not so sure that the drugs actually make you better other than making your doctor happier. I am wondering the same thing about diuretics.

You're headed in the right direction. As more weight comes off, you should see better blood pressure numbers. And if you're nervous when you see the doc, it can make your readings look bad.

My GP wants me to begin statin therapy, because he says studies are showing an average increase in life span of 50%...even in T2Ds without cholesterol problems.

I start today.

Some links for you to check out; whatever you decide, good luck And if you do start the statins, please consider taking some good quality CoQ10 supplement.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=678


http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=510

http://www.spacedoc.net/index.html

This is generally true, but one can lose a large amount of fat, and do a lot of heavy exercise and lower neither blood pressure or FBG. And triglycerides are being a bitch to boot.

Prov91, my doctor may be like yours in that with T2D he sets lower targets for cholesterol. He wants my LDL below 95. Since I got to 102 without meds and still losing weight, he did not prescribe cholesterol medication.

I just posted on the Cholesterol forum about my blood lipid levels after one month back on serious low carbing. See:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...984#post7260984

Although dietary cholesterol does not affect my blood cholesterol levels much, dietary carbohydrates most certainly do. My belief is that hyperinsulinism was driving up my cholesterol levels and that low carb eating drops the blood insulin levels, which in turn drops the blood lipids.

I'm a type 2 diabetic with a very thick waist (very apple shaped), suggesting high insulin resistance.

In his book: "Eat Fat Get Thin", Barry Groves has this to say about dietary cholesterol:


[/QUOTE]Your body can absorb only about 300 mg of cholesterol per day from the foods you eat and, as your body needs many times that amount, it then makes up the difference. Although the major proportion – up to 2,000 mg
a day – is manufactured in the liver, almost all body cells can manufacture cholesterol. For this reason, if you cut down on the amount of cholesterol you eat, all that happens is that your body makes more. And you can eat as much as five times the usual 300 mg without it having any effect on the amount of cholesterol in your blood. So it really doesn’t matter how much cholesterol you eat: whatever that amount is, it will certainly be less than your body needs.[QUOTE]