Over on my blog, The Daily Lipid, I'm running two series right now, one on genetics and one on the lipid hypothesis. Two posts from now in the latter series, which should come out in the next week, I'll be covering whether LDL matters. http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/

Chris

Copied over from the post your labs thread: http://paleohacks.com/questions/11247/post-your-labs-general-and-specific-cholesterols-vitamins-etc#axzz1FHZ9FKSy

My cholesterol has always been "good" FWIW, but I worried that my HDL was too low. My doctor has never really cared about it being low though.

8/25/10 just before going Paleo:

This was from a free work health screen, not super involved, just fasting bloodwork.

Fasting glucose: 82

Total cholesterol: 156

Triglycerides: "less than 45" (which I think means it didn't show up on their test)

HDL: 52

LDL: 104

12/18/2010 4 months Paleo

Fasting glucose: 90

Total cholesterol: 144

Triglycerides: 26

HDL: 63

LDL: 76

So, yay! I guess. I was just really glad to see the HDL go up. I had read some studies that low HDL was sometimes linked with depression because it helps your brain use seratonin. I had done everything I could find to raise it. I think it was finally the extra fat that pushed it up

i just got my results today and was also curious how it compared with others. i'm female, 27 years old and have been paleo only for 2 months or so. i don't have previous blood work results to compare these to. when the doc asked me if i'm on a diet, i almost laughed before i said yes, thinking how i my "diet" is high-fat :)

Total: 195 LDL: 79 HDL: 101 Total/HDL Ratio: 1.9 Triglycerides: 75 Glucose: 71 BMI: 23.6 Body fat %: 26.8 Blood pressure: 100/50

HAHAHAHA....I came on here today just to ask the exact same thing. It seems like almost no one has normal cholesterol on this diet, but reports, specifically from Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions, state that HG tribes had normal cholesterol levels despite there huge intake of fat. I am curios to know if anyone has retested there cholesterol again after being on paleo for quite a while to test the theory that cholesterol only rises temporarily.

Or there could also be another underlying problem in those with high cholesterol, such as Hypothyroidism or some underlying inflammation.

I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that those who are eating a biologically appropriate diet, which most of us are, should not be at all concerned about their lipid panel results, especially LDL. And if we know that LDL doesn't correlate to cardiovascular risk, then should we be worried about total cholesterol or a ratio between LDL and another value such as HDL? Wouldn't all of those values be irrelevant? Something we need to consider is that the SAD, past veg*n diets etc. do a lot of damage and skew your cell membrane composition toward omega-6/PUFAs. Most of us likely start out with non-alcoholic fatty liver to some extent when we begin paleo, so that's another thing that needs to be repaired. Going high saturated fat, low fructose would almost certainly result in a liver fat purge.

If I were 4 years into a biologically appropriate diet instead of less than 1 and I got the results back that I just did with everything looking good but TC being 391 I would be slightly taken aback, because I would have a turnover of nearly all of my cells with the proper o3:o6 ratio and my liver would have long since been purged. I've never seen someone with really high LDL who has been paleo for a while. What's a lot more common is total cholesterol that exceeds the arbitrary 200 point after a long period of paleo. These individuals also happen to have extraordinarily high HDL which is skewing the TC upward. I would wager that this is from coconut consumption.

Now, we of course have lipid panels from many contemporary HGs, including the Inuit and Kitavans and we don't see them breaking 200mg/dl. Should we be alarmed? I think there are definitely those in the paleo community who consume every day more coconut oil than even the average Kitavan. I think this could account for the difference. As for me, I'm allergic to coconut, so I doubt I'll get HDL up to around 100, but it's possible. I also can't attribute my LDL to coconut. Do all humans require coconut and will I develop a coconut deficiency? No, that's ridiculous. It's possible that going wheat-free for years could mitigate my tree nut allergy and I could eventually work it into my diet, but I'm not worried about it if I can't.

I then find myself in a situation where all of the real markers for cardiovascular disease are great but I have this one aberrant value. I could take statins of course, which would likely damage my health but make that number go down. I could also stay within the realm of what is biologically appropriate and consume substantial quantities of soluble fiber, which would bind the bile acids in my intestines and interfere with the reuptake of cholesterol. Do I really want to do that? If you feed your body the correct raw materials in the correct amounts and for some period of time it wants to spike the cholesterol content traveling around in your lipoproteins, do you really want to get in the way? Won't that simply increase the duration of elevated LDL-C and make the recovery process longer? What are my goals? Is my goal to be healthy or is my goal to make my doctor happy? We've reached a sad point where that is unfortunately not the same thing. Similarly, when fed a biologically appropriate diet, do you trust your body or do you trust the medicine-pharmaceutical complex?

All told, my LDL could be accurately described as obscene and yet I sit here without a worry. The most I'll say is that it has piqued my interest and I'll certainly want to get it rechecked in 6 months to see how it's trending, but I'm far more interested in lowering TGs and raising HDL, but even then I'm not going to consume specific things in highly unlikely and perhaps inappropriate dosages, paleo or not, in order to manipulate those numbers. I like the idea of giving my body what it likely needs in sufficient, but not excessive amounts, and letting it do what it wants. If medicine can't tell us what to eat and says that every American needs to pour money into the 25 billion dollar statin coffers, then perhaps they don't have a complete understanding of why my LDL is so high currently and what specific operations it's doing as it floats around my body and attaches to cells. I've become quite attached to this body of mine, and I think I'll trust the fellow.

25 year old male.

Copied over from the post your labs thread: http://paleohacks.com/questions/11247/post-your-labs-general-and-specific-cholesterols-vitamins-etc#axzz1FHZ9FKSy

My Labs are also somewhat normal.

-->Total cholesterol- 220 [normal 110-199] down from 239 pre paleo

-->HDL- 29 [normal >40]

-->LDL- 159 [normal <160] pre-paleo 149

-->Triglyceride- 161 [normal 40-250]

-->Vitamin D- 31 [normal 20-100]

Glucose: 97 (normal range = 70 to 100)

Should I be concerned about my raise in LDL or glucose level?

For more Paleo hacks: http://paleohacks.com/questions/11247/post-your-labs-general-and-specific-cholesterols-vitamins-etc#ixzz1FTreDct8

Me:

Total: 299 HDL: 73 Tri: 57 CRP: 1.2 45 years of age and switched from vegan to paleo 5 months ago.

That's all I have.

39 yo female, paleo for one year aside from a few holidays and a honeymoon, but followed Atkins for 7 years prior to paleo (VLC <50g/day). (These test results are after six months paleo, but right after honeymoon with lots of alcohol and fruit)

My numbers: LDL 80 HDL 85 CHOL/HDL ratio 2.0 TRI 39 TOTAL 173

I've been paleo for a year, off statins for 4 months.

43 yo male 5'8": 170 lbs muscular/very good shape (now---just a little over 2 years ago I was massively obese at 265).

Blood Work:

Cholesterol Total: 198

HDL: 56

LDL: 132

Triglycerides: 48

Glucose: 93

Blood Pressure: 109/67

Resting Heart Rate: 50-55 BPM

I eat a lot of fat (3 Egg Omelette & 3 strips of bacon for dinner tonight; breakfast, lunch and dinner are usually: meat + veggies), quite a bit of protein and low carb (very little/never).

Indugences/excesses: too much red wine and (dark) chocolate covered almonds.

I still need to lose 5-10 lbs.

Exercise: short, fast and intense (total exercise time per week is less than 2 hours)

Frankly, paleo is good human medicine. This is how I was meant to eat, live, etc.

Personally: who knows what the lipid numbers mean? We are told to eat low fat and high carb; when I ate that way, my blood lipids were all 'deranged' according to what we think we know about cholesterol, blood lipids, etc.

I have to go by how I feel: which is super. Tonight I was talking with some co-workers and we were talking about aging---I was talking about how I feel, not better than I felt 2 years ago (which only makes sense, since I was a mess), but better than I felt when I was 20 years old (basically, stronger and better than ever) and this is a year into making this diet change and about 6 months into making the change into short, fast and intense exercise. I still feel like I'm scratching the surface.

Interestingly, my total cholesterol has increased over the 4 years(to 199) I have eaten Paleo, but risk markers have all significantly decreased (even according to the American Heart Association calculators). As my cholesterol has gone up, my risk of a heart attack has decreased due to the composition changes in my blood cholesterol(<1% chance according to the AHA).

Technically, being right at 200 would put me on the verge of "above average" total cholesterol, but my HDL was very high and LDL was the big fluffy kind. Also, my blood pressure was very favorable and my fasting glucose was 66 (I crossfit 3x a week after a 12 hour fast).

I don't spend much if any time thinking about this, but I do get an annual physical and I am a data geek so I tend to analyze the numbersthat come back. My co-workers/friends/relatives can't figure out why I'm not obese given that I eat a low-carbish diet that includes copious amounts of fat including butter,lard, tallow, etc. The kids make me keep the choco-lard snack quiet so as not to embarass them.

Vitals - 41 year old male, 170 lbs, definitely in the best condition of my life!

Just had my cholesterol checked after being Paleo for about 8 months. Prior to going Paleo I was taking a statin (Lescol). My weight was never too bad (165lbs 5'7in, 57 years old male). I stopped taking the Lescol when I started the Paleo diet.

My Paleo diet consists of mostly grassfed meats, chicken and eggs, plus vegetables, salads, some dairy (cream mostly) and dark chocolate a few days/week (sometimes chocolate covered almonds). I mostly cook with butter and coconut oil. Since on the Paleo diet I now weigh about 145lbs. Also exercise 3-5 days/week.

Went in for a Dr. visit as all of a sudden started getting tingling/numbness in my left hand/arm and was feeling a bit under the weather. While at the Dr. they took my blood pressure and gave me an EKG. EKG was fine as was blood pressure (120/80). Also had my my blood checked and requested a VAP test (I had been fasting for about 12 hours). However, just got a call from my Dr's office today and the results over the phone appear not to be the VAP test. My cholesterol numbers also appear high. I plan to stop by the Dr's to see if there are any other results and why they didn't do the VAP.

Anyway, the numbers I was given are: Total: 277 LDL: 196 HDL: 72 Triglycerides: 43

They want me to go on Crestor (thinking the Lescol wasn't working -- even though I told them I had stopped taking it).

So on the surface are these alarming? I know they might not mean much without the LDL breakdown, but the total is making my wife nervous. I've read the stuff about statins and don't want to necessarily jump right back on them, but am a bit confused at the moment.

Jeff

I notice this issue comes up a lot. Recently, in the comments over at PHD, some were assuming that LDL always skyrockets on a high sat fat diet. I remember looking up a few pub med articles when I started low carb in 2007. I thought generally the findings were that ldl increased slightly or remained stable in most cases. Out of curiosity I have dug up the five lab results I have dating from 2002 to last May. I am 52, started low carb in 07, went very low carb, then Paleo last summer, and have been on the PHD ketogenic diet since Feb, pounding down copious amounts of coconut oil (and largely eliminating my migraines). I have two labs from my high carb, high whole grain, low fat days, two from my low carb days, and one most recently after four months on the PHD ketogenic diet. My ldl has remained unchanged, 75+-4. Triglycerides went down during my VLC stint, otherwise have remained the same. HDL jumped 20 points when I went low carb (80 to about 100) and has stayed there.

I think I'm in the "conventionally considered decent" category; don't know about "normal."

47 year old female

XLC (a term suggested by a friend instead of "zero-carb," which is technically highly improbable) 2 years; VLC 2 years before that.

As of June 2011:

Total C: 180

Trigs: 32

HDL: 56.6

LDL: 117

LDL/HDL ratio: 3.2

The hubs isn't "perfectly" paleo by any means, but after a year or two of 80/20 his labs were: LDL 168, HDL 52, TRI 71. His TRI/HDL ratio was good and his doctor thought his numbers looked totally fine. This was 2 years ago and he hasn't had another test since then. I should mention also that he has some hormonal difficulties (panhypopituitarism since childhood) and he's more prone to having "bad" cholesterol numbers than most people are. Oh, and he never even saw his cholesterol numbers get any better at all until he corrected a vitamin D deficiency.

I've never had a cholesterol test myself and I don't really plan to, so I can't speak for myself.

Just got my cholesterol done for giggles (I'm a 28 year old woman and have been low carb for 3 years and paleo-ish for one.

Total: 154 HDL: 71 LDL: 54 Trigs: 50

BP is 184/20

Now I'm wondering if that's too low do you think? I do smoke, but thought that inflated LDL?

From last year (02/2010), had just started to pull grains and add even more fat/protein as my husband had recently discovered paleo (though i've always eaten pretty well and always loved my butter. drank like a fish - wine):

Cholesterol: 191 mg/dl HDL: 101 LDL: 78 Triglyceride: 61 Glucose: 94 (to be fair i'd just eaten a chocolate croissant) 34yr old woman, 5'7" 135 lbs.

I'm generally good with these numbers, although some other numbers on the test made me wonder.

I haven't gotten a post-primal lipid panel yet! I'd be really curious to see what's changed.

I got one right before I changed my diet (I had been doing very high calorie, high carb, tons of wheat and sugar, off and on vegetarian, off and on dairy, for a couple years). Total was 156, LDL 74, HDL 71, trigs 54. Wish I had gotten my CRP tested then.

That is a pretty awesome panel for someone who ate as poorly (in hindsight) and felt as sickly as I did at that time! I was getting a raft of tests and suspected I had celiac (tentative diagnosis was IBS as my celiac test was negative and endoscopy and colonoscopy showed healthy guts, no evidence of malabsorption).

I am also young (23 at the time of that test, 25 now), but low total cholesterol, high HDL, low-normal blood pressure at all ages runs in my mom's side of the family (who tend towards a fairly French/WAPF way of eating, but are usually fat after late middle age). We have great longevity too and literally zero incidence of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension in the last few generations, but we get cancer after age 75 and have a ton of issues with mental illness.

31 yo Female. Paleo on and off since 2006. Before was doing Calorie Restriction Optimal Nutrition -- tracking all my food.

I've been trying to figure out whether I'm improving in my lipid panels or not. It's really confusing.

November 2006 Total Chol:118 \Tri: 36\ HDL: 61 \VLDL: 7\ LDL (Friedewald) 50 \ LDL (Iranian): 24.65 \ Tri/HDL Ratio 59%

November 2010 Total Chol:159 \Tri: 55\ HDL: 69 \VLDL: 11\ LDL (Friedewald) 79 \ LDL (Iranian): 61.83 \ Tri/HDL Ratio 79%

From my blood-work thread:

Cholesterol                 320
Triglycerides               69
HDL Cholesterol             87
LDL Cholesterol, Calculated     219
Cholesterol/HDL Ratio           3.7

We all do when we realize what normal really is

Me! 33 year old female. Very low carb/somewhat paleo (I eat nuts and dairy) on and off since 2003, "on" again stricter since 2010.

Total Cholesterol: 196 mg/dL

Triglycerides: 65 mg/dL

HDL Cholesterol: 84 mg/dL

VLDL Cholesterol Cal: 13 mg/dL

LDL Cholesterol Calc: 99 mg/dL

LDL/HDL Ratio: 1.2 ratio units

These results are from 4/25/11. I'm getting another workup done in a couple of weeks.

Last test in Oct: Total: 175 Triglycerides: 47 HDL: 77 vldl: 9 LDL: 89

This would be before I called it "primal" - just doing low carb with a lot of attention to food quality.

In January I got these results, after about 7 months of mostly paleo:

Chol total: 191 Triglyceride: 28 HDL: 84 LDL Calc: 101 Fasting blood gluclose: 85

I intend to order a VAP very soon, as I've made some dietary changes during 2011 (more ruminant meat and fat, more starches on active days, less dairy, sugar, and fruit) and want to confirm things go in the right direction.