My DH just got his blood work back. His total cholesterol is 209, which I wouldn't really worry about except that his HDL is much too low, and this was an insurance pre-screening and you know what having the 'wrong' numbers can do in the minds of paper pushers.

Background. We've been on Atkins a full year. He eats sushi once week, and crab or shimp once a week most of the time. I do all the cooking, and we use free range meats, olive oil, butter or coconut oil, and probably not quite enough veggies, veggies are an ongoing struggle in this house. The test was mid January. He did slack some over the holidays, but that means he had dessert more often when we ate out, so only a max of 3 times a week. No bad carbs in the house. He works out twice a week, but we slacked that a little over Xmas too, so that might have been a factor.

The holiday slacking is over, and he's back on the straight and narrow.

I could really use some suggestions on getting his HDL up, for his health, and at least temporarily the total down, for insurance purposes. (We're self employed, and this would get him a MUCH better rate.)

Total Cholesterol 209 <200
Triglycerides 101 <150
HDL 37 >40
LDL 152 <100
and something called
LDL Direct measurement 182 <100


No suggestions for soy please. I'm highly allergic.

I know exercise raises HDL, I'm thinking Fish Oil might too.

While I'm sure that there are other ways, the only two methods that I know of for raising HDL are exercise and eating saturated fats.

Niacin supposedly raised HDL and lowers LDL. You have to take fairly high doses and there are some risks, so research it thoroughly, but it may work in the short term to get the rates down.

Fish Oil is what I have been
using to raise HDL and my Dr.
seems to think that will help.

Omega 3 and 6 - 180 caplets for about $15.00
Take 3 a day and that should do the trick, unless
my doctor has been lying to me.

Fish oil and, of course, vitamin D. Vitamin D is closely connected to cholesterol HDL.

To get triglycerides down it takes saturated fats.

See, thats one of the reasons I'm so confused. I use tons of butter and coconut oil. I only use olive when it needs to be liquid at room temp. He eats macadamia nuts and cheese...

I think I'll see if he'll take my fish oil supplement.

Thanks for the ideas so far.

I think I was reading that it was the saturated fat from around meat, not from vegetable sources.

wouldn't saturated fat also increase LDL?

I know that a comination of the following might be benificial

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
30 minutes running 3 - 5 times a week
Fish Oil
Green Tea or Green Tea extract (from a good source!) - Lower LDL and triglycerides and increase HDL

I didn't need to try and consume a lot of saturated fat to get my tri's down to 35mg lol. 8-10g a day of SF

Yes, It increases both LDL and HDL. As lont as the TRI's are low, the LDL is of the healthy 'fluffy' type and is beneficial.

There is a lot of research, as far as I could find, behind plant sterols and stanols for lowering LDL cholesterol without lowering HDL. Supposedly they are safe, except for possibily inhibiting the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, remediable by upping the intake of such vitamins. I'm *not* convinced that the stanols and sterols will lower heart disease risk, but they, with other dietary methods, have been shown to be as effective as statins. So for short-term use they might be worth it. (I bought Cholest Off at Costco.)

I wrote another post today about the anti-saturated fat "religion." And this religion punishes heretics and deviants. I was writing about doctors who can be sued if they don't prescribe statins and warn you about saturated fats. (In the suit, the plaintiff would establish that statin treatment and sat-fat advice were the standard of treatment....)

Here we see another edge of this: even if your risk of heart disease is low, you can be punished for "bad" lipid numbers. My own response to bad numbers was to get a cardiac CAT scan. $400, not covered by insurance. But at least I would *know* how my cardiac arteries were doing. (Just fine, thank you.) And, a bit cheaper, C-reactive protein (excellent, thank you *very much.*). Essentially, my risk of heart disease is *very* low.

(I also now have, thanks to Atkins, good HDL, very low triglycerides, and the only "bad" thing is very high LDL and total cholesterol; I've been unable to find a local lab that will fractionate the LDL so that I'd know what it really means.)

Hi Abd-
I get my 'advanced' lipid profile from a company in California, that my cardiologist uses. I'm sure you can request one from your MD. It does the whole thing with the large and small LDL and HDL and measures the LDL directly.(I think the compnay is Liposcience.)
I, unlike you, am very high risk for heart disease. When I started the WOL my HDLs were in the mid thirties, and now are in the high 50s (58 last week). I do take medication, and also grind my own flax and have 2 T(whole seeds prior to grinding) daily in addition to my walking and weights (that has been stable for 20 years). I eat red meat at least 2-3 times/week, and the Egglands best eggs daily too.
E

Red rice yeast extract and niacin, not for long term though, if this is just for Insurance purpose. But this works!

Red Yeast Rice is a natural statin, so make it VERY short term, if at all.

And take at least 100mg of CoQ10 a day.