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My bp just gets lower as I get older.. have no idea why but seems too low to me
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Cholesterol and me
- Thread starter Rodgearing
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I think it depends on GP. My TC was 6.4 although all components were in green zone. My QRisk was 8.6% (although the QRisk is a rather heavy handed of measurement), BP and weight all good. The nurse advised me to reduce saturated fats and see what happens by next blood test (2023).Although having read all the research papers appearing on this forum I think for me if there is no real improvement I will have a go with the Statins... but that will be next year's treat.
So researched by different funders,so many published peer reviewed papers, yet as this thread has shown people are still concerned about Statins. That in itself is worthy of a PhD
harbottle
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I am sure I read some official NHS guidelines that said said to offer statins to all diabetics; I know a few type 2s that take them even though their cholesterol levels were fine. They use it as an open invitation to indulge in as much saturated fat as possible! 🙂
Conspiracy folks seem to have got it in their mind that they are dangerous, but they're probably the most widely used drug around and have been in use for decades.
Conspiracy folks seem to have got it in their mind that they are dangerous, but they're probably the most widely used drug around and have been in use for decades.
chaoticcar
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My cholesterol was around 7 when I was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 I was offered statins but decided not to take them .When I lowered carbs and upped fats my cholesterol came down to low 5s which I am happy with as a female OAP !
D
Deleted member 21371
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Bad fat, (saturated) pushed mine up.
I stick to low good fats, Mediterranean diet, and will happily take statins for them.
chaoticcar
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As was said before we are not all the same I start my day with my one and only slice of toast with cheese and marmite followed by full fat yoghurt with double cream and berries or half a small easy peeler..I put butter on my vegetables ,use butter for frying snack on nuts and my cholesterol levels stay the same and apart from diabetes and old age I am ok
rebrascora
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I think the difficulty with any study regarding cholesterol and food is that it involves people sticking to a diet and/or being honest about what they eat (which is problematic in itself) but also that cholesterol is impacted by other things. I think genetics will play a part and I think soluble fibre plays a part and undoubtedly a whole host of other stuff.
Perhaps @travellor is predisposed to saturated fats raising his cholesterol and myself and @chaoticcar are not. Perhaps @travellors cholesterol levels would have come back down if he had persisted with eating saturated fats, particularly if he was in a weight loss phase at the time or perhaps he hadn't lowered his carbs enough to get that benefit or perhaps he wasn't eating enough soluble fibre. I only know what is working for me and I currently eat a lot of fat and it is mostly saturated (cheese cream, fatty meat), I follow a low carb way of eating and I have plenty of fibre including a fibre supplement (psyllium and chia seeds) each morning and my cholesterol is the lowest it has ever been at 4.2. Yes it is still over the 4 that they like diabetics to be below but I am happy at that level and my high fat diet suits me and my body and my consultant is happy. Yes, they would happily prescribe me a statin but I am fit and healthy and if it wasn't for my diabetes, my cholesterol level would be considered fine, despite the fact that I am fitter and healthier and slimmer since I was diagnosed and my diabetes is well managed..... so I really can't get my head around why a fit healthy person with an "acceptable" cholesterol reading should have to take medication for the rest of my life, just because I have a condition which I spend a lot of time and effort managing well. I accept it is my decision and my risk to take (they calculate my Q-Risk at something like 13%) but I am not convinced that that calculation reflects my individual circumstances.... to me it is a very blunt tool and unless my cholesterol goes through the roof, I will continue to decline and focus on keeping fit and healthy.
Perhaps @travellor is predisposed to saturated fats raising his cholesterol and myself and @chaoticcar are not. Perhaps @travellors cholesterol levels would have come back down if he had persisted with eating saturated fats, particularly if he was in a weight loss phase at the time or perhaps he hadn't lowered his carbs enough to get that benefit or perhaps he wasn't eating enough soluble fibre. I only know what is working for me and I currently eat a lot of fat and it is mostly saturated (cheese cream, fatty meat), I follow a low carb way of eating and I have plenty of fibre including a fibre supplement (psyllium and chia seeds) each morning and my cholesterol is the lowest it has ever been at 4.2. Yes it is still over the 4 that they like diabetics to be below but I am happy at that level and my high fat diet suits me and my body and my consultant is happy. Yes, they would happily prescribe me a statin but I am fit and healthy and if it wasn't for my diabetes, my cholesterol level would be considered fine, despite the fact that I am fitter and healthier and slimmer since I was diagnosed and my diabetes is well managed..... so I really can't get my head around why a fit healthy person with an "acceptable" cholesterol reading should have to take medication for the rest of my life, just because I have a condition which I spend a lot of time and effort managing well. I accept it is my decision and my risk to take (they calculate my Q-Risk at something like 13%) but I am not convinced that that calculation reflects my individual circumstances.... to me it is a very blunt tool and unless my cholesterol goes through the roof, I will continue to decline and focus on keeping fit and healthy.
D
Deleted member 21371
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Nope, saturated fats are just bad, no excuses, and it's quite funny that random strangers try to second guess why their "one size fits all" must be the fault of other people when it clearly doesn't work, while even you need to ensure you take soluble fibre supplements to keep some sort of control.
But if you are happy with your Q-risk, fine.
It would be patronising to ask why you believe you haven't made it fit your lifestyle.
rebrascora
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Actually I take the soluble fibre to improve my overall gut health which is the best it has ever been throughout my life with my current diet and I used psyllium pre low carb with much less success. It was only after the cholesterol started going down that I guessed there might be a link with soluble fibre and then I think it was @Eddy Edson posted a study confirming that although it showed a minimal improvement compared to statins of course. What I wonder is.... Were the people on the study eating a regular diet with more fibre or a low carb diet with increased fibre, because I think it is a combination of the two which significantly improved my levels.
I will happily take my chances with saturated fats because I no longer have faith in governmental nutritional advice or nutritional studies. I have decided to go with what feels right for me and my body and there are certainly quite a few of us who find that cholesterol has gone down rather than up for us whilst eating less carbs and more saturated fat.
I will happily take my chances with saturated fats because I no longer have faith in governmental nutritional advice or nutritional studies. I have decided to go with what feels right for me and my body and there are certainly quite a few of us who find that cholesterol has gone down rather than up for us whilst eating less carbs and more saturated fat.
nonethewiser
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Cheese marmite & toast, what a lovely combination.
D
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Quite a few - of a very small percentage of diabetics who do stick to a low carb high saturated fat diet, which in reality is probably less than twenty who have noticed it on this site.
And to be honest, after you seemed to think "Perhaps @travellors cholesterol levels would have come back down if he had persisted with eating saturated fats, particularly if he was in a weight loss phase at the time or perhaps he hadn't lowered his carbs enough to get that benefit",
when it's quite clear I reversed my diabetes on a low fat diet, then a calorie restriction to 800 calories, to lose 5 stones, and get my cholesterol to normal, so on minimal saturated fats, then low carb, you seem to have made a leap that if I kept eating to a diet they were going up, and eating more saturated fats would have fitted your answer to reverse that increase?
I'll stick to a NHS diet, not a very restricted high cholesterol diet I need to counter with supplements.
I didn't choose diet control initially, I just chose a diet to fix all my issues as well, not just to focus and BG, then move on to how to fix the problems that would cause me, and bring in a second phase of diet control.
rebrascora
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Fair enough!
However, I do wonder how many more people would find the same as the relatively small number of us who don't seem to have a problem with saturated fat, if they were not so terrified of going against the NHS dietary advice to see for themselves. I know that advice hampered me for quite a while and made going low carb quite difficult. Once I introduced more natural fats, it all became enjoyable.
All I think is that people should be encouraged to see what works for their body rather than being restricted and inhibited by conventional advice.
D
Deleted member 21371
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Terrified?
What an odd expression.
Possibly it may have been somewhere you were, but I can honestly say I don't believe I have ever met anyone terrified of food.
I know I ate badly, I ate myself into type 2 but I just ate myself out, following accredited sources of advice, and took the opportunity to fix other issues at the same time.
42istheanswer
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I had a patient once, well over retirement age, whose normal BP was 80-90/40. We checked it a dozen times including manually before we finally concluded that it was just low as she had no symptoms of anything from it, didn't drop when standing or increase when lying down, fluid intake was enough. She was in several days and it stayed at that the whole time
42istheanswer
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One of the things that we know plays a part is how long you were breastfed for (with those breastfed for longer in general being less likely to have issues with cholesterol - breastmilk is high in cholesterol so there's some speculation that it may be that it primes the body to deal with dietary cholesterol).
D
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I had a mate like that as well
Eddy Edson
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If anybody wants to dig into the actual expert thinking on dietary fats, lipids and cardiovascular disease, the detailed American Heart Association advisory from 2017 is a great resource: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/cir.0000000000000510
A crucial thing to bear in mind is that you need to look at the whole diet not just bits of it. In particular, if you increase something then you need to decrease something else & vice versa (to maintain the same energy intake).
But in general:
- Saturated fats tend to increase LDL-C.
- Polyunsaturated fats tend to decrease it.
- Mononsaturated fats are pretty much neutral.
- As are unrefined carbs ...
- ... but refined carbs have about the same effect as saturated fats.
- Transfats are pretty much poison.
If you cut down on junk like pizza, chips, donuts etc etc you may think of it as going "low carb" but that's quite misleading. What you're really doing is cutting down on refined carbs and generally a big proportion of sat fats and maybe even transfats.
If you replace this junk with eg lean meat, dairy and avocados (say) then you may well end up eating more total fat and less total carbs, but the lipid impact will come from a higher proportion of unsaturated fats and a lower proportion of refined carbs. Nobody knowledgeable in the field would be astounded to see an improved lipid profile, depending on the actual dietary details.
A crucial thing to bear in mind is that you need to look at the whole diet not just bits of it. In particular, if you increase something then you need to decrease something else & vice versa (to maintain the same energy intake).
But in general:
- Saturated fats tend to increase LDL-C.
- Polyunsaturated fats tend to decrease it.
- Mononsaturated fats are pretty much neutral.
- As are unrefined carbs ...
- ... but refined carbs have about the same effect as saturated fats.
- Transfats are pretty much poison.
If you cut down on junk like pizza, chips, donuts etc etc you may think of it as going "low carb" but that's quite misleading. What you're really doing is cutting down on refined carbs and generally a big proportion of sat fats and maybe even transfats.
If you replace this junk with eg lean meat, dairy and avocados (say) then you may well end up eating more total fat and less total carbs, but the lipid impact will come from a higher proportion of unsaturated fats and a lower proportion of refined carbs. Nobody knowledgeable in the field would be astounded to see an improved lipid profile, depending on the actual dietary details.
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Eddy Edson
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But it remains the case that if you start with a generally OK diet and lipid profile, and aggressively replace carbs with a whole lot of saturated fat as would often be the case with a keto diet, then most would expect that your LDL will probably go up, in some cases like a rocket.
See eg: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001988/pdf/nutrients-13-00814.pdf
A study looking at the effect of a ket diet with a large proportion of satfats vs a standard guideline diet for a group of healthy young women with good starting lipid etc metrics.
The keto diet: In the LCHF diet the daily intake of carbohydrates should not exceed 25 g, excluding fiber. Carbohydrates were replaced by fat (77% of daily energy intake (E%)), with a high proportion of saturated fatty acids (33E%). The LCHF diet was based on meat, fish and seafood, eggs, high-fat dairy, coconut fat, olive oil, raspberries, avocado, nuts, and above ground vegetables such as broccoli and aubergine.
Some results:
The blue lines are the individual changes in LDL and apoB on the standard guideline diet; red lines = keto diet. On average, keto increased LDL by about 1.8 mmol/l over 4 weeks. The range of responses was wide, but keto increased LDL and apoB in every subject.
On the standard guideline diet, LDL and apoB average a slight decline, the baseline kind of effect you usually see in these kinds of study where people tend to be more mindful than they would normally be.
It was a crossover study - for each participant, 4 weeks on one diet, 1.5 weeks wash-out, then 4 weeks on the other. Adherence seems to have been tightly monitored and good. For each participant, there is a blue line and a red line in the charts above. The differences between the diets for each individual were strong.
It's the same picture you see reported again and again by experts in the field: high satfat keto versus a guideline diet has a wide range of negative impacts on lipid profiles, in some cases by a large amount.
If you're seeing something different on a low carb diet then the natural question is: what did your diet look like before? If it also had a high proportion of satfats and refined carbs, and you've actually lowered these, then it's not necessarily surpiring that your lipid profile improves, particularly if you've also lowered energy intake.
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