Yes. In order to avoid paying a much higher premium for now government-required health insurance a yearly health check including cholesterol is required, and LDL must be below a certain number which for me is impossible to attain through any natural (non drug) means or the allotted "discount" on premium is withheld. However this particular insurance company does offer another way to obtain the discount by having to set up and keep telephone appointments with a health coach who sincerely and well-meaningly gives advice I either know way more about and already am using or else is (again, well-meant but) useless, like telling me I'm not eating enough carbohydrates. This year, just plan on setting up those appointments after my screening, talk politely to health coach who's just trying to do her job and maybe really is a help to some junk-food-consuming couch potatoes who could use some sort of advice, and get my discount.

I worry about that myself.

I started looking into those health incentive things through my own employer health insurance, but quickly realized that my honesty about gym use, diet, and cholesterol would target me. I'm doing the opposite of what they reward...

For those of you subject to testing for insurance, you could try Dave Feldman's "cholesterol drop" protocol:
http://cholesterolcode.com/extreme-...rop-experiment/
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/u...-insurance/7147

If you can tolerate some extra carbs (so that total is about 100g/day) for just 3 or 4 days prior to having your lipid test it could lower your LDL. Some extra protein (especially whey/casein) on those days will also help. And for good measure you could do a one or two day fast after the blood test - if you are bothered about that extra carb intake.

This might not work in every person but as a temporary strategy for the purpose of insurance requirements it's worth a try.

I've also read that eating some extra eggs the day before the blood test will help lower your cholesterol test results but I haven't tried that myself. Maybe I will sometime though because I'm curious.

Feldman's protocol is solid and he's got the data to show how to do it most effectively.

I gave the protocol a try awhile back but think maybe I didn't do it right because it raised my cholesterol result quite a bit rather than lowering it. I'm thinking maybe I didn't consume enough fat and might need to force feed myself massively more fat during the trial period to make it work, or perhaps dairy fat is problematic. Although it's not easy to consume zillions of calories worth of stuff like olive oil. Cream and butter are easier. Unfortunately trying to raise my carb level significantly even for three days would be problematic, although the suggestion is appreciated.

Dave answered a post I made wondering about effects of types of fat. Swapping fat sources for somebody eating around 30 percent fat is a bit different than eating those same proportions of fats at a higher or lower total fat intake. If you take omega 6 fatty acids, for instance--there might be threshold effects for that particular fat in particular. Take a fat source that will leave you essential fatty acid deficient at 100 grams of intake, double intake--and you might get sufficient essential fatty acids, that could have profound effects.

DaveKeto said;



There's still the question of type of fat, whether you get 40 percent of dietary fat from coconut, butter, lard, or other sources makes a big difference to the particular free fatty acids you're taking in, palmitic vs. stearic is a big deal, same is true of various poly- and mono- unsaturated fatty acids. Swapping with mono and slightly higher poly--if an effect were had from his usual to appetite ketogenic diet being lower in, say, linoleic acid, then changing to a diet where linoleic acid was increased by sheer bulk of fat in the diet, it's possible that he had already reached the point of diminished returns for increasing linoleic acid vs. ldl cholesterol levels, with raising it slightly at that point having little obvious effect.

http://www.free-workout-plans-for-b...carb-diets.html

This person looks at four studies with effects of a ketogenic diet on cholesterol, not really comprehensive. But interesting that a study from the 70's on the Stillman diet showed 12 dieters changes in cholesterol, they typify the diet as high in animal fat and protein, we know here that it would fall in what Dave would probably call a lower fat, higher protein low carb diet, has this to say;



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/

Then there's this study.



Cholesterol and ldl cholesterol went down significantly here, it's hard to say by how much, or how much fat was eaten, how much of it polyunsaturated vs. monounsaturated--but the authors do go to some lengths to praise the wonders of polyunsaturated fat-based ketogenic diets in the preamble. Type of fat, sheer amount of fat, mixture of both? I think we need more studies/n=1's to parse this out. The difference between an approach that stressed protein vs. one with a greater emphasis on added fat (but polyunsaturated) is interesting, the second study gives an average change in cholesterol, but every one of 12 subjects on the one approach experiencing an increase in cholesterol, vs. 83 subjects on average having reduced cholesterol doesn't sound like a chance occurrence.

Adding krill oil plummeted my cholesterol.


I'm a type II diabetic, and my cholesterol level is highly dependent on my blood sugar level. So my cholesterol will drop a good bit if I keep to close to zero carbs.

But the krill oil (which was the only change between blood tests) dropped it a good 25% more than that. One Viva Naturals pill twice a day.

Cholesterol and inflammation are strongly linked. That seems to be what the body needs to combat inflammatory processes, and the Standard American Diet is practically designed to be highly inflammatory.

On first reading this post I failed to notice the reference numbers in brackets but I since have and took the trouble to look them up. What Stephen Guyenet calls 'extremely strong evidence' are two papers, both of which are nothing but meta-analyses, i.e. the weakest possible of all medical evidence (so-called).
1) Effect of long-term exposure to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol beginning early in life on the risk of coronary heart disease
2) Association Between Lowering LDL-C and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Among Different Therapeutic Interventions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The first paper is a real cracker. It is trying to make an argument "for starting LDL-C lowering therapies [i.e. statination] earlier than is currently practiced." Of course the fact that this would generate more business for the statin pushers is completely irrelevant and it must also be purely coincidental that one of its authors, Dr Flack, is a consultant to Novartis, 4th largest pharmaceutical company in the world and a statin pusher.

This paper also begins its introduction with: "The causal relationship between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and coronary atherosclerosis is well established. Multiple randomized trials have demonstrated that lowering LDL-C by treatment with a statin significantly reduces the risk of major coronary events"
To back up this statement it also gives a single solitary reference, which is yet another meta- analysis. The most interesting part of this very unreadable paper is the following:

Conflicts of interest
Most of the trials in this report were supported by research grants from the pharmaceutical industry. Some members of the writing committee have received reimbursement of costs to participate in scientific meetings from the pharmaceutical industry. AK and JS have also received honoraria from Solvay for lectures related to these studies.

Extremely strong evidence indeed

Yes, and the fact is that not much of anything is known regarding LDL-C and its influence on health. As stated earlier, we need to conduct more studies with the necessary rigor to determine the role of LDL. For now, claiming a certain amount of LDL in the blood has health implications is healthy only for those invested in pharmaceuticals designed to lower LDL and those that allegedly promote cardiovascular health. It's a game at this time until we know the facts.