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jej said:
Chris McClinch said:

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jej said:

My cholesterol went from the 170s to the 110s.

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Why do you consider this a positive? With a total cholesterol level in the 110s, your HDL is almost certainly below the healthy range. However, I'd posit that the drop in total cholesterol levels had more to do with the drop in saturated fat intake than with the drop in dietary cholesterol.

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jej said:


I do not doubt the drop in sat fat may have been responsible. As I said, I was not logging fats at the time, but sat fat intake was minimal. Still is. In fact, my total fat intake was lower than it should have been, as I look back on it. As I said, I do not know it was causal.

I'll also comment in response to another part of this thread, I have no problem with meat and salt. In my case, I have to limit salt, and I think a lot of folks get too much without knowing it, but you die without it.

My HDL is, was, and remains lower than it ought to be by my standards. Its on the low end of the "normal" range, and has been through major weight loss. I want it much higher. It hardly budged with this change or any other change I have tried. It was too low when I was on the pizza and beer diet, stayed too low when I cleaned up my diet, remained too low as I studied how to fix it. We will see in October if my latest efforts are successful. Total HDL was the topic, so that is the number I commented on here. Total reduction was a good thing as it kept my ratio where it belonged. My LDL went down at this time, too. My trigs were way too high, too. Got that one figured out and fixed, too. Different fix than the total cholesterol fix - no more pizza and beer. Well, really, minimal simple carbs.

BTW - my current effort to increase HDL - I have not found any magic bullet for it and no sure cure. I have read of positive results possibly related to strength training, increased MUFA and PUFA, increased niacin, and alcohol. Three out of four ain't bad - no alcohol here.

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I think this is why Chris pointed out that dietary cholesterol has little to do with serum levels. The cholesterol in your blood is made by your body in response to what your body believes it needs. If your HDL and LDL levels are out of whack (and unless you're a heart patient, a 179 raw number is not necessarily bad) it usually has more to do with other endocrine factors.

Cholesterol levels are just one of many factors related to heart disease and heart attacks. Truth be told, it's pretty far down the scale in terms of seriousness. 50% of all fatal heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol levels. But it's the one getting most of the attention these days because it is a factor that can be affected for most people just by taking a pill. The pharmaceutical companies have jumped on this and spend billions of dollars to keep the issue in front of us. Never mind that pill may have other problems.

/sk