Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

2

I got a blood test a few days ago and I just got the results back. I have been pretty good paleo wise for about 10 months or so. Although recently I have been allowing in a lot more carbohydrates in the forms of root veg and I have added in some dairy in the form of yogurt.

For reference I am a 19 year old, male, I train pretty heavily around 5-6 times a week, don't drink or smoke and get lots of sleep.

The thing that I think is an issue is the high LDL, but since my HDL is also high does it balance it out? What are your thoughts anything stand out?

Blood test results

flag	asked Apr 21 2011 at 11:05 Shmoe 21●1

you need to see a doc. The low T is a concern and I think you need more testing done. – The Quilt Apr 21 2011 at 15:34

Dave S. · Answer 1 · 2011-04-21 12:49:38Z UTC

3

I've said it before, I'll say it again.

My favorite quote on this is Dr. Harris - he is referring to a lecture by Dr. Doug McGuff:

'At one point in the lecture, he hints that he does not believe in doing a lot of testing. He says, “if the number is bad, eat healthy, and if the number is good, eat healthy”. What do you need the number for?'

answered Apr 21 2011 at 12:49

Dave S.
21k●1●11●65

2

What is eating healthy? We think we are eating healthy but our model does not take in to account individual differences and it does not take into account that we might be wrong (THE UNTHINKABLE!) about some things. Surely there is a margin for error, but if he's 19 and has low-ish testosterone then something needs to be amended. – Thomas Seay Apr 21 2011 at 16:51

completely utter disagree with this. Eating alone does not fortell health issues. I guess if you ignore things long enough you'll forget about it or just die. – The Quilt Apr 21 2011 at 17:10

he absolutely needs to see a doctor. – The Quilt Apr 21 2011 at 17:10

The trick is knowing what is eating healthy. I agree that we are still working that out, though we have quite a few ideas about it. It probably is not a bad idea to check a few numbers from time to time, but I beleive Dr. Harris is primarily referring to lipid panels - getting vitamin D checked or other tests is another matter. Testosterone is usually higher in the early morning - this test was done at 13:10 - so it might not be an issue. Of course, I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on TV. – Dave S. Apr 21 2011 at 17:48

Lavendergrits · Answer 2 · 2011-04-21 11:58:05Z UTC

Interesting test results. I am not a doctor or in the medical profession. I am a mid 50's woman who has exercised all my life and was vegetarian for about 20 years before going paleo December 2010.

My cholesterol results over the last 7 months look like this:

August 2010: HDL 112 (Reference range 0-150) LDL 163.6 (Ref range 0-99) Triglyceride 77 (Ref range 0-150)

March 2011: HDL 89 (Reference range 0-150) LDL 190 (Ref range 0-99) Triglyceride 70 (Ref range 0-150)

My doctor immediately wanted to put me on a statin. I asked her the composition of my LDL, percentage of large and small, she said "there is only one kind of LDL." Um no there isn't!

I did research and discovered if your triglycerides are low and your hdl is high it is most likely that your LDL consists of large size LDL which is what is optimal.

I also researched statins and discovered that they do not work well, if all for women, and are more harmful than good.

This website and other Paleo sites have been a tremendous source of information for me in understanding human physiology. I have never trusted the medical profession and am even less trusting now that I know how little they know about the impact of diet/exercise on health.

The following is a post from Stu Christenson http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=61871&page=2 Friedwald Equation with low triglycerides:

LDL Cholesterol = Total Cholesterol - HDL - (TG / 5)

LDL = 200 - 79 - (43 / 5) = 112

But if triglycerides are much higher, look what happens to LDL!

LDL = 200 - 79 - (125 / 5) = 96 If you didn't have a specialized test which directly measured your LDL, then the number you're seeing is a result of this equation. So, the moral of the story is, keep those triglycerides up so your LDL will look better! Or, that it's all a big scam to promote the use of statins.

I hope this helps. H. Leonard

becker · Answer 3 · 2011-04-21 12:24:52Z UTC

I read a study recently that showed that people who only eat one large meal a day exhibit higher LDL cholesterol levels, though I don't recall if there was any data on the composition of the LDL pattern. If you only eat one large meal a day, or maybe even two large meals, perhaps that explains the high LDL? That may not at all be a bad thing.

Regarding a balance between HDL and LDL... I've heard this concept thrown around before, but I've never understood it. There is no danger to having natural constituents of your blood, like HDL and LDL, floating around in normal concentrations. HDL delivers cholesterol and some lipids to the liver, LDL does the same from the liver to the tissues and back. I'm not sure where a balancing sort of interaction would take place between the two lipoproteins that has anything to do with cardiovascular disease risk control. I think the only think to really worry about is if your Pattern B LDL, the dense kind that can work its way between endothelial junctions and oxidize to induce plaque formation while stuck there, is at an unusually high concentration. You can get that tested if you want to accurately interpret the LDL number.

Paleo Blood Test Results

3 Answers