I know a lot of people say don't worry about cholesterol but they also usually say that an lc diet improves cholesterol readings, but has not in my case apparently. At my year's check up my doctor made concerned noises (statin!) and I made unconcerned noises (never!) but looking at the whole picture, what should I think?

LIPID PANEL:

DATE:........CHOL...........LDL(calc)......HDL........NonHDL.....TRIG

7/5............232.............. 161..............44 ............188..........133
10/22.........208...............145..............41 ............167..........112
1/4............218...............145..............44.............174...... ...144
5/24...........257...............190..............49 ........... 208.......... 89

I'm diabetic and not really contemplating not doing lc. (A1c was 14.1 last July 5, and 5.1 this April and I've lost ~80 lbs. )

I've read that hypothyroidism can raise LDL and I have Hashimoto's but am on no medication as tests indicate no hypothyroidism according to my internist. I tried NutriMeds thyroid anyway just to see if I might not feel more energetic or something with thyroid supplementation, even in this uncertain form, but felt terrible after 3 days (awake all night, heart palpitations) so I guess he was right.

I'm not really overly concerned about heart disease per se as my blood pressure is normal now and I had a stress echocardiogram last fall prior to surgery (for cancer) and the cardiologist, who was a man of few words, said my heart was "good" and I didn't have to see him again for 5-6 years. Other lab tests all year were ok, other than blood tests when I was anemic at the tail end of chemo.

I guess I'm just disappointed that my HDL is still so low after a whole year and my LDL is rising.

Or could this actually be a good sign? In this article written by Dr. John Briffa, http://www.thecholesteroltruth.com/...ncrease-the-ris, he concludes "there is more than a little evidence that low cholesterol levels might cause cancer" perhaps through its association with Vit D. (I raised my Vit D levels from 36 to 78 last fall/winter). About statins he says,

There is some other evidence that low-cholesterol might cause cancer in the form of a study which found the combination of two cholesterol-reducing drugs (simvastatin and ezetimibe) over four years was associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer. When the results of three studies in which simvastatin and ezetimibe were used in combination were analysed together, they revealed risk of death from cancer was raised by 45 per cent.

45%! I'm really getting sick of having to second guess my doctors.

Well, at least you know that a statin is of no use to you, as you're a woman.

We've seen people lower their cholesterol by taking natural thyroid meds in place of synthetic. I've never heard of nutrimeds. Maybe just a very small amount of T3 would help you along with the synthetic T4.

Ah, it sounds like Nutrimed is a supplement. I wouldn't trust that as a test, especially if you were taking it along with your other medicine. Try switching to Armour thyroid or take some Cytomel. They are prescriptions, not supplements. Who knows how precise or controlled the supplement is?

I remember reading that your calculated LDL goes up when your triglycerides are under 100. It has to do with how the LDL is calculated. So that might be a reason why your LDL increased. Your HDL also increased, so though it might not be at the ideal amount, you seem to headed in the the right direction.

I can't comment on the thyroid/cholesterol connection as i don't have any clue about that, but I say keep up what you're doing, and definitely NO statins!

Congratulations for losing 80lbs and dropping your A1C levels!! I hope this also means you've beat the cancer.

The only med I take is Metformin for diabetes. My doctor said I was not hypothyroid, even though I've got a lot going on with my thyroid (had an ultrasound and then biopsy that showed nodules, "vesicular lesion", cysts, etc) so he's not likely to prescribe anything. He said the TSH ("normal') is a very sensitive test and when I asked him about T3, he said it can fluctuate greatly in a short period of time so as a test is meaningless.

I tried the Nutrimeds, just to see if I felt better. If I had, I was going to press him for more tests. I know a supplement is not the same as prescribed meds, but the info on the site (which I went to from Stop The Thyroid Madness, btw) owned up to that and said that they were trying to provide for people who were unable to get a scrip but might be helped by their product. My mother sent me an article from her paper where a doc from the Mayo Clinic was railing about the fact that people could get supplements online that contained some actual thyroid hormone; I figured that was probably the one.



You're right about the calculated LDL and triglycerides. I found some great info on Low Carb Friends http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/c...rol-primer.html According to this poster, who appears to have done a lot of research so people like me don't have to:



My ratios are pretty much the same using both equations:

Total/HDL: 5.24 (ideal = 4.4 or below)
Trig/HDL: 1.81 (ideal = 2 or below)
LDL/HDL: 3.67 or 3.87 (ideal = 4.3 or below)

So, much less bad than I thought except for my HDL being so low which still a bit of a puzzler as to why it hasn't increased much.



Thanks. I'm pretty pleased with my weight loss effort through the last year I've had. And after all that I went through (surgery, radiation and chemo (for endometrial cancer) I too hope I've beat it!

The typical cholesterol numbers are useless as a predictor of heart disease risk IMO.

If you could only look at one thing in order to gauge heart disease risk it would be the actual (not estimated) number of Apo B particles in your blood plasma. 90-95% are LDL particles and the more there are, the worse off you are. 2000 nmol/L of LDL-P is in the 95th percentile and would be considered a high risk of atherosclerosis. 1000 nmol/L is the 20th percentile and is much healthier. Under 1000 nmol/L would be considered the healthiest.

Most current Lipo panels only measure total cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL-C. LDL-C is estimated.

Health Diagnostics Laboratory (HDL), Inc. directly measures Apo-A1 and Apo-B particles as well as LDL and HDL particles per liter. VAP (vertical auto profile) tests, which is a common test that doctors use, do not directly measure actual LDL or HDL particles. They have a formula that they use to estimate Apo-B but from what I understand that formula has never been validated and it's never been published in a peer review journal.

IMO I would get an Apo-B particle or LDL-P test done before going on any drugs. Make sure it's directly measured and not an estimate. If it's high then you'll have to address it. If it's within a good range then ignore what the other test says.

Here's some 'light' reading on the subject.
http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/...lesterol-part-i