The FastDay Forum

hi - i've been doing 5:2 since the beginning of jan - inspired to mostly by michael mosley's very positive cholesterol results. mine's been rising for a number of years and is getting much higher than desired and has so far been non responsive to changes in diet. i was very hopeful that 5:2 would help and have been religious in following for over 3 months, having had a blood test just before i started. i was really knocked back after just over 3 months to find that my total cholesterol had gone up and my ldl had gone up. total now just over 8. my ratio was slightly improved as my hdl had also gone up a little - but the ldl and total were very disappointing results. there doesn't seem to be much feedback on this element from all those trying - even though this is an easy test to do. what have others found? and any thoughts? it's not what i'm eating! i'm on a very cholesterol friendly diet. thanks. btw i have lost over a stone whilst doing 5:2 -at about a lb a week. now 9stone 11 and am 5ft 6.

[carorees]

Because cholesterol levels rise during fasting (because your fat stores are being burned for fuel and the fuel has to reach the tissues where its needed, the fat had to circulate in your blood), testing blood for cholesterol after an overnight fast on someone who is used to fasting may well result in higher values than if the blood is taken when in the fed state.

So, first question is...did you have bloods taken after an overnight (or longer) fast?

Several members have reported on their cholesterol results..most have had good results but some have seen increases. Most have reported good total:HDL ratios though.

As you may know, the ratio of total:HDL cholesterol is the best indicator of cardiovascular risk. If your ratio had improved, therefore, you should be pleased. What is the ratio you got? Under 4 is considered low risk fur must peyote unless you have high blood pressure and/or smoke.

If you search the forum for "cholesterol" you'll find some threads where people have reported their results. Plus a just published paper on fasting and improved blood lipids.

Interesting. In Aus, at least in the experience of myself, friends and family, cholesterol is always tested after an overnight fast. I guess at least the testing is consistent but will always be higher than otherwise. My last reading was 6.3 but the ratio was reasonable; I don't remember the figure. My doc wasn't overly concerned as I don't have any other risk factors. Besides, she knows my attitude to taking statins.. It ain't going to happen till I'm convinced that A) cholesterol is really a problem and B) statins are safe. From her silence on the matter I get the impression that she agrees even though it's not the official position in medical circles. I'll get mine tested in the next month or so; it will be interesting to see if anything changes.

hi caroline - thanks for the reply. i did search for cholesterol stuff but couldn't find anything clear on this but will try again. my ratio is still bad - over 5 - though good that it has improved slightly. frustratingly i've lost the paper where i wrote down the results so will have to hunt tomorrow! total was over 8 and most of that ldl but the slight increase in hdl meant the ratio had slightly improved - tho still too high. because my blood pressure was a little lower than last time and because of weight loss and (very slight) ratio improvement i am still not quite in the statins arena - and like chook am very keen on avoiding them. i was just very disappointed at the ldl increase and wondered how general feedback on this was going. i wonder how much michaels improvement was to do with his intensive exercise regime as much or more than the 5;2. for health reasons i cannot exercise in that way. the test is always done as a fasting blood test so i had fasted for 14 hours, but that is always the case. i purposely didn't do it after a fast day as i wanted to keep conditions as much the same as usual for comparison. it also seems to me that, unlike other purported benefits that are hard or expensive to check , this one is relatively easy and cheap to do so it would be relatively easy for all the people trialling 5.2 to be monitoring this and feeding back results so that we can see if, in general, this regime is proving a significant factor in cholesterol reduction. more information or thoughts on this much appreciated. thanks all.

[carorees]

Here is the study looking at cholesterol levels after a 24 hour fast compared with not fasting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term ... od%20trial

I had some blood tests done last week.
I had fasted the day before and eaten a light dinner, and nothing else before the blood tests the following morning.

My ratio of total:HDL cholesterol is shown as 3.62, which is on par with previous results.

Caroline, do you know if there have been any studies on how fasting affects familial hyperlipidemia? My dr's pretty sure that's my problem since my levels are so high and have always been. Typically my diet is low in cholesterol, rarely do I go above 100 mg a day (unless I eat eggs) and that doesn't seem to bring it down any, so I can't imagine that 5:2 is going to affect my levels that much.

Nodakmom,

If you have familial hyperlipidemia then it is unlikely that diet will impact cholesterol readings unless you also have a poor diet - which it appears you don't. Statins should help as they inhibit an enzyme in your liver called HMG-CoA Reductase which is an essential enzyme needed for the synthesis of cholesterol. Of course statins can cause a number of side effects themselves including a rare serious side effect in skeletal muscle (so called rhabdomyolysis) which can be fatal (but it is very rare).

For those with high cholesterol and finding that diet does not help then the culprit is probably your liver synthesizing too much cholesterol.

Caroline, do you know if there have been any studies on how fasting affects familial hyperlipidemia? My dr's pretty sure that's my problem since my levels are so high and have always been. Typically my diet is low in cholesterol, rarely do I go above 100 mg a day (unless I eat eggs) and that doesn't seem to bring it down any, so I can't imagine that 5:2 is going to affect my levels that much.

What's the fat content of your diet and how does it split saturated / monounsaturated / polyunsaturated ? Cholesterol in the blood isn't strongly related to that in the diet.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2536273 proposes some dietary measures as does http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8213496 with its "Cholesterol-Saturated Fat Index" - : CSI = (1.01 x g of saturated fat) + (0.05 x mg of cholesterol).

Not seen anything on fasting though.