I have a friend whose husband has an HDL reading of 19. He's working on his 4th stent to relieve a 99% blockage. I am not so up on heart stuff. What does this mean realistically for him? 19 seems SOOO low, like he might be on the verge of fatal collapse, but I don't know. Folks are currently trying to convince him to adopt a low carb diet, but I don't know where he's at in his head. 19 - no wonder he feels like absolute crap.

So worried.

Here are some of the causes of low hdl:

* Uncontrolled diabetes (high blood glucose levels)
* Smoking
* Being overweight
* High triglyceride levels
* Lack of physical activity
* Genes
* Certain medications (anabolic steroids, progestins)
* Poor diet, especially if high in carbohydrates

http://cholesterol.about.com/od/lip...owhdlcauses.htm

I think Vit D3 deficiency might play a role too.

http://www.heartscanblog.org/2008/0...-d-and-hdl.html

I think it's most of the above LOL - I meant what will having an HDL that low do to your body? How dangerous is it? He's pretty sick and having a stent placed today, 50ish, probably overweight by twenty or thirty pounds.

Pretty much doom you to having heart disease.

Well, he already has that. Is he going to die tomorrow? Neurological defects?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14506615

"CRP showed a strong and negative association with high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol"

E.g. the less CRP the higher the HDL.

And seeing as inflammation is the real cause of heart disease, CRP should be lowered.

If you look at the ATTICA trials, choline and TMG show great promise in lowering C-reactive Protein, thus increasing HDL. Dosages would probably be something like no less than 600mg of choline and 8 grams of TMG. Vitamin C in megadoses (1-5grams) and Ubiquinol ~ 100mg shows promise as well.

Cytokines such as TNF-a and IL-6 illicit the release of C-reactive protein, thus lowering them (some examples would be milk thistle, r lipoic acid, curcumin, quercetin, vitamin k2 [MK-7], and lactoferrin) would almost undoubtedly lower C-reactive protein.

Also get the hs-CRP test done. Which is the test I find to be more causal than cholesterol by leaps and bounds.

Let me update. This guy has finally accepted going on a low carb diet. His stenting wet well and he is finally healing.

A stent is not healing. He has to get his LDL particularly his VLDL down . shoot for between 5-40.
His C-Reactive Protein should be<1.00
Food choices are everything
hope this helps.
TThrash

Holla bro.

And as for VLDL, OP:

.2*Triglycerides
or
Triglycerides /5

(obviously the same result, just preference really)

Or you could have them measured directly. Glycated LDL could be another issue (if he ate a lot of fruit this is especially important). R Lipoic Acid is great for anti-glycation.

Lp(a) is pretty well taken care of by low carb (Hyperlipid showed an 11% decrease with low carb on his blog in one study). Homocysteine should be considered as well if they are having trouble getting enough B-vitamins from food, 6-7mmol/l is a good goal for HCY. ( a review of HCY's role in CVD as well as it's current status as of January: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3026670/, http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newa.../011211p8.shtml - the big thing to take away from the first one was that folic acid was synthetic, thus we can't pretend that it isn't a risk factor - maybe folinic acid or methylfolate would've yielded a better result. )

And don't believe everything you hear from studies about statins, as the JUPITER trials have everyone up at arms. The relative risk was used in the report and not the absolute risk, thus making it look like statins are God's gift to man.

You guys have a lot of attitude. I said he finally accepted adopting a low carb diet. That's how he's healing. Why would his LDL matter in the least?

VLDL is gummy and sticks to artery walls, vs LDL which doesn't do much.

additionally, a stent is fine but it won't take care of the problem if he doesn't change his life style of eating.
since i have switched to low carb i havn't lost a lb but my sugar levels have really fallen to A1C of 5.3.

Lots of controversy concerning stents and statins. I personally agree with the statins as they help in a lot of ways but others hate them.
Homo cysteine plasma should be 0.0 -15.0
There are two types of ldl , one is light and fluffy. no problem. the second is the dense ,sticky type( mentioned by previous poster) that one is deadly. it sticks and ruptures the artery wall.
Again your Dr. should be telling you this , but today you have to be your own physician in so many ways.
take care

TThrash

Jay1988 What is TMG?

The pill form of betaine. It's found in legumes and such. Though not in super-generous portions.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylglycine

Wiki page.