Cholesterol levels

The_One

The_One

The_One

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2003
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Anybody else have regular blood tests to keep an eye on them?

Vast majority of the public are oblivious to the levels i ntheir body and could be at risk of heart disease or worse and not know.

I tend to get them checked every year. They tend to want it below 5.0 for a man.

Last year i was 4.4 but this year its shot up to 6.6!! Really shocked me as i tend to eat healthy only difference in my diet this year is because of training i eat a lot of chicken (Thighs and legs) i leave the skin on because i think its tasty.

Ive now been toldd the skin is a killer and loaded with saturated fats. Gonna cut out the skin and get retested in 3 months to see if it drops.

Whats everyone elses levels :p
 
Cholesterol is overly berated.

Too low cholesterol is bad for you.
But too high cholesterol is your body's protection system in place trying to protect the arterial walls and arterial structures. If left at too high a level it will then have very serious health implications.

Generally the whole cholesterol issue is based on Big Pharma making money from statins (which are very bad for you). They've integrated themselves into to society so deeply (with the help of GPs being misled and thus spreading the myth) that it will take many many years to dispel it.

It doesn't mean you should ignore choleesterol levels but just know the real facts. Also, too high cholesterol levels can be easily lowered quite fast to a safe and healthy level by eating & drinking healthily.

I recently bought a couple of books:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

From this chap - I've got dozens of nutrition and health books as I like to get a broad picture/idea/knowledge. I can't recommend to anyone enough about reading a bit more about nutrition and on how our bodies function.
 
The_One said:
Thats the view of someone whos prolly about to keel over and have a heart attack :p
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heart-attacks_0.jpg

Seriously though:

I still get my blood /tests and pressure checked each year as my BP was unusually high. Since I've left the office and got a more physical job I've lost just over 2 stone in weight (none of my jeans now fit me :o)But I feel so much better in myself right now, it's really hard to describe. It's almost like I know the physical work and the exercise I'm getting is doing me so much good :D

Op is right - it's worthwhile getting your cholesterol level checked out as well. I also tend to eat fairly healthy, rarely eat takeaway food and drink alcohol only occasionally. My one treat of a "proper" cooked breakfast once a month means you can still enjoy treats, live healthy and keep your cholesterol within safe limits :)
 
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Freefaller said:
Cholesterol is overly berated.

Too low cholesterol is bad for you.
But too high cholesterol is your body's protection system in place trying to protect the arterial walls and arterial structures. If left at too high a level it will then have very serious health implications.

Generally the whole cholesterol issue is based on Big Pharma making money from statins (which are very bad for you). They've integrated themselves into to society so deeply (with the help of GPs being misled and thus spreading the myth) that it will take many many years to dispel it.

It doesn't mean you should ignore choleesterol levels but just know the real facts. Also, too high cholesterol levels can be easily lowered quite fast to a safe and healthy level by eating & drinking healthily.

I recently bought a couple of books:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

From this chap - I've got dozens of nutrition and health books as I like to get a broad picture/idea/knowledge. I can't recommend to anyone enough about reading a bit more about nutrition and on how our bodies function.
Click to expand...

lol @ this one scientist makes a living selling books telling you cholestoral is good for you and you take it as gospel when scientists and doctors the world over tell you its bad for you
 
The_One said:
lol @ this one scientist makes a living selling books telling you cholestoral is good for you and you take it as gospel when scientists and doctors the world over tell you its bad for you
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I don't think Freefaller is saying for a second he'd take the word of one specific author/individual without looking at the whole bigger picture and that I believe is what he's asking us to do in his post?
 
Freefaller said:
Cholesterol is overly berated.

Too low cholesterol is bad for you.
But too high cholesterol is your body's protection system in place trying to protect the arterial walls and arterial structures. If left at too high a level it will then have very serious health implications.

Generally the whole cholesterol issue is based on Big Pharma making money from statins (which are very bad for you). They've integrated themselves into to society so deeply (with the help of GPs being misled and thus spreading the myth) that it will take many many years to dispel it.

It doesn't mean you should ignore choleesterol levels but just know the real facts. Also, too high cholesterol levels can be easily lowered quite fast to a safe and healthy level by eating & drinking healthily.

I recently bought a couple of books:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

From this chap - I've got dozens of nutrition and health books as I like to get a broad picture/idea/knowledge. I can't recommend to anyone enough about reading a bit more about nutrition and on how our bodies function.
Click to expand...

+1 Good post.

People sometimes forget that the body makes around 80% of our cholesterol anyway, and that it is necessary.

I have always thought of the Pharmaceutical industry as a business more than anything else.
 
The_One said:
lol @ this one scientist makes a living selling books telling you cholestoral is good for you and you take it as gospel when scientists and doctors the world over tell you its bad for you
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Put it this way, tests have shown that people on Atkins diet lower bad cholesterol and heighten good cholesterol, that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. You then have to look at the 5 a day campaign which is a totally arbitrary number and means nothing at all.
Then look at inuits who eat high fat high meat diets and again have good chelostral readings.

Things are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, all he is saying is read round and form your own opinion.
 
Total level is fairly useless all this <5 stuff isn't what is important. It is the ratio of HDL, LDL, and trigs that is important. Very healthy levels of will most likely be high. HDL (the good one) getting higher is good but it is just added to the totally which means it just goes up when you are doing well. Having high HDL with low trigs will change the size of LDL and make them 'fluffy' which is good.

If you go read the research papers you'll find none (or only badly do ones) that say <5 is important. But you'll find many that will say higher levels are in fact good. Again total level isn't the important factor it is the balance of its parts that matters.

Statins don't even lower it, what they in fact do is make the stuff you have stay hard and stuck in plaques which is good if you need them as the problems you get from it are caused by bits breaking away.
 
Yup there's a lot of BS in the medical world. :) There's a huge myth out there - seriously.

And remember HDL cholesterol is actually good for you. Cholesterol is used to make lots of important elements in your body:

- hormones (a whole selection, including testosterone)
- bile acids
- vitamin D3 (with sunshine - which is why sun is good for you too)

The body uses lots of cholesterol daily and it's so important that every cell in your body can make it (except the brain cells).

Cholesterol can be ingested through meat/flesh, however less than 20% of your body's cholesterol will be supplied that way. Your body actually makes up the difference. If you eat less cholesterol, your body will make more to compensate for it.

Although media and food companies (supplements etc...) will continue to warn against cholesterol in diet - yawn. It's been proven that the level of cholesterol in your blood is barely affected by the amount of cholesterol you eat.
 
Crowort said:
Total level is fairly useless all this <5 stuff isn't what is important. It is the ratio of HDL, LDL, and trigs that is important. Very healthy levels of will most likely be high. HDL (the good one) getting higher is good but it is just added to the totally which means it just goes up when you are doing well. Having high HDL with low trigs will change the size of LDL and make them 'fluffy' which is good.

If you go read the research papers you'll find none (or only badly do ones) that say <5 is important. But you'll find many that will say higher levels are in fact good. Again total level isn't the important factor it is the balance of its parts that matters.

Statins don't even lower it, what they in fact do is make the stuff you have stay hard and stuck in plaques which is good if you need them as the problems you get from it are caused by bits breaking away.
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Spot on :)

Sonea Fifer said:
I don't think Freefaller is saying for a second he'd take the word of one specific author/individual without looking at the whole bigger picture and that I believe is what he's asking us to do in his post?
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Indeed :)
 
Crowort said:
It was based on people in Italy eating '9' a day, but they decided since most people were eating 0-3 a day too meet in the middle if I remember right.
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The research was a massive study several hundred thousand and all though it found that people who ate more veg had lower heart disease, the heart dissed was very low anyway and only slightly lower in the veg group. However the researchs also sighted things like smoking,drinking and general health may well be high in such a group, as people who eat healthy are also likely to avoid such things and have higher fitness levels.

And this is the problem with statistical research, you have to rule out all the other affects before citing stuff as true, but this rarely if ever happens.
 
I was just pointing out that it had some research behind it but I agree that it isn't the whole picture and that the '5' is lower than the level eaten on average by the subjects of the trail.
 
But a lot of what that russian says about cholestoral being good for you is flawed anyway.

He cites that masai people who eat pounds of meat a day and drink lots of full fat meat have low cholestoral levels compared to european people.

What about the fact they work ALL day and walk miles to get food and water each day he seems to of not mentioned that when comparing their levels to western people
 
I'm just using him as one example - there are dozens upon dozens of other papers out there. :)

Besides it just highlights the poor quality of the western world's diet.
 
Just to throw it out there. Unsaturated fats mean that somewhere in the fat molecule there is a double bond. Saturated fats mean that there is no double bond in the molecule.

The double bond means that something can react with it and therefore break the molecule down. This is why excess saturated fats can be particularly difficult to get rid of. You NEED them of course, but having a huge excess of them will lead to them just clogging up your system, especially your heart.

Not sure what this post is meant to do, perhaps to explain that you need to analyse things properly in order to truly understand them
 
So from what ive researched just i gather

6.6 is your overall cholestoral thats the sum of LDL and HDL

but whats important is how much of that is HDL and whats LDL. If its high levels of HDL and low levels of LDL then thats good right?
 
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