Cholesterol and me

[harbottle]

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 LD-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.

Yes - I pretty much replaced carbs with fish, dairy (Yoghurt, as I don't like milk), nuts, white/lean meat and vegetables (With the occasional small portion of baked potato.) I use olive oil and very occasionally add maybe a tablespoon of double cream to some dishes, although from what I have read for some reason saturated fats in dairy don't seem as bad (Apart from butter). Something to do with something in dairy that changes how it's digested.

There's the odd bit of dark chocolate, but usually only a square or two.

Seems to have reversed the LDL/HDL values for me.

The last time I tried eating bacon it tasted absolutely disgusting. Which was odd, as I was quite fond of my bacon batch in the morning on the way to work pre-T2.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

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.

That's basically what I did.
I started out with a very unhealthy diet, with both saturated fats and refined carbs in quantity.
Far too much quantity in fact, so I had to cut calories as well.
Dropped mostly saturated fat, switched to far healthier wholegrain carbs, ate less overall, and I got the results expected there.
I did experiment with different fats, as my GP was happy to run blood tests every three months, so I could definitely find the mix that worked for me.
I'm still regularly tested, so it's very easy to keep on track now.
I didn't really want to move back to high sugar/refined carbs, as I'd lost the taste for them by then.