Vascular Disease Prevention-(corrected)

What's important in the Lipid profile

Getting off the COVID for a moment.

Let’s chat about another favorite topic of mine, cholesterol.

It seems like the entire medical world wants to outlaw cholesterol, especially LDL, known by some to be the bad or evil heart clogging cholesterol.

Well, I beg to differ. In fact, I say ……

I see the pressure to get your LDL cholesterol lowered pharmaceutically with a cholesterol lowering drug called a STATIN. This is equivalent to the bullying and pressure to get a COVID jab. Odd thing though, if you look at the data from the statin prevention studies and look at the absolute percentage risk reduction for both statins and the COVID jabs, you will find both are very very low, somewhere just above or below 1%. This means in real life only about 1 in 100 people benefit from these treatments as they rarely prevent what they are being advertised to do.

If you believe all the #fearmongerers in traditional medicine, you would be afraid of cholesterol. I’d be rich and retired if I got a nickel for every time I discussed lab results where the first question wide eyed fearful expressed question would be, “How is my cholesterol DrH?”

FYI

I learn a whole bunch about you when I measure your lipid profile, but not necessarily what you think.

Generally I order a lipid profile which includes:

Total Cholesterol

Triglycerides

HDL

LDL

VLDL

The above is actually a Lipid profile which are measurements of different types of lipoproteins.

In years past I ordered an advanced profile that also tested type of lipid particles as well as their size. But my clinical experience over the years proved to me that the advanced profile did not add anything to gauging your health risks, so for now I stick to the regular lipid profile.

Warning:

My interpretation of your lipid profile is not the same as Traditional Docs who seem to focus almost solely on your LDL cholesterol which they have labeled as “bad cholesterol”.

I do not believe that LDL is bad cholesterol just as I do not believe HDL is good cholesterol. Each has different necessary functions in our body. What is important is to have a good healthy balance of each.

While Traditional Docs focus on the LDL and always talk about the LDL goal being below 100 for low risk and 70 for high risk people, I rarely focus on LDL.

Why?

In my clinical experience I have NOT seen LDL to be an independent direct risk factor for vascular disease.

I have seen patients with both low and high LDL have heart disease. Yep, people with low LDL can develop heart disease just like high LDL and average LDL. In fact there are studies indicating that as you age, you may live longer with higher as opposed to lower cholesterol.

So is LDL important to measure?

You betcha! But not for the reasons Traditional Docs think.

Let's dig down a little deeper.

• Total Cholesterol is the amount of LDL, HDL and VLDL in your blood. This measurement tells us almost nothing in terms of health or vascular risk.

• LDL is a lipoprotein that carries fat soluble energy and nutrients from the liver out to the body via the bloodstream. LDL nourishes your cells with everything fat soluble that the cells need such as triglycerides for energy, fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K, as well as fat soluble hormones. So yes, you can think of LDL lipoprotein as a fat soluble nutrient transport vehicle.

• HDL is a lipoprotein that brings back to the liver excess fats from the bloodstream. HDL is probably right up there with Triglycerides as most important.

• Triglycerides are a fat in your blood derived from the excess carbohydrates in your diet. Triglycerides are probably the most important measurement in the lipid profile.

• VLDL is more like the excess backed up fat exiting your liver, almost like a backed up sink drain. If you have too much back up, well, you have an increased chance for a big mess. VLDL tracks very closely with Triglycerides.

((Below ratios are the corrected typos from my earlier brain-fart))

The most important tests on the lipid profile are your Triglycerides (Trigs) and HDL and the calculation of the Trigs/HDL ratio.

Lowest Vascular risk Trigs/HDL < 1

Average Vascular risk Trigs/HDL 1-1.5

High Vascular risk Trigs/HDL >1.5

Sooooo, your question should be,

"How do I lower my Triglycerides and raise my HDL?

Great question!!!

Luckily the same intervention that lowers Triglycerides also raises HDL.

Can you guess what that intervention is?

Anyone??

Anyone??

Bueller??

Bueller??

OK, I'll tell you.

Lower your carbohydrate intake!

Carbohydrates --> Glucose--->burned for energy OR stored as Triglycerides.

It is the EXCESS dietary carbohydrates in your diet that will get stored in fat and end up elevating your Triglycerides.

Interestingly, usually when the triglycerides drop, the HDL rises.

My definition of a Carbohydrate:

anything from the plant kingdom (grows in the ground or on a tree or bush), that can not run, swim or fly away from you. So yep, that includes fruits, vegetables, grains, rice, flour, bread, pasta, sugar ....

Most of us learned to decrease white processed carbohydrates to improve our health. But for many that may not be enough. You may also need to reduce even the natural carbohydrates from the plant kingdom if you have elevated triglycerides or an elevated Triglyceride / HDL ratio.

What does that leave to eat?

Well, if it can run, swim or fly away from you, then you can eat it.

If it can run, swim or fly away from you, it has lots of muscle and organ which are composed or mostly protein and natural fat. Protein and natural fat will NOT raise your Triglycerides.

What does a diet like this look like?

75% or more of your food intake will be meat, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese, dependent upon if you have any food sensitivities/allergies.

But what about all the fat in animal products?

Having monitored lipid profiles and their relation to vascular health in my practice for over two decades, I am very confident in my views above.

For more information on the new understanding of lipids and health, please visit www.cholesterolcode.com .