The FastDay Forum

I am a female aged 58. Myself and husband have been on the 5/2 diet now for 7 weeks. We have annual medicals which include bood tests. I have never had any problems with cholesterol levels. My husband has normal levels but does take Lipitor. We started the diet mainly for it's health benefits rather than weight loss as we are both within normal weight ranges. However we have both lost a couple of kgs. We decided to have repeat bood tests done which we did today and expected to see a reduction in our cholesterol levels. However, my husband's has gone up slightly but mine has sky rocketed!! Mine has gone up from 4.6 to 6.1. Triglycerides down from 1.4 to 1.3, HDL down from 1.8 to1.7 and LDL up from 2.2 to 3.8!!! We are at a loss to explain this as we have eaten far more veggies, less meat and have cut out alcohol on the 2 low calorie days. Can anyone explain what is happening?

[carorees]

D'oh! I typed out a long reply and then my phone crashed and I lost it all!

Anyway, I'll try again!

During a fast your cholesterol levels go up as the fat is released from stores and circulates round your body to be used for energy as you are not eating. Once you get used to fasting, your body switches into fat burning very easily so you will likely have higher cholesterol levels after an overnight fast that someone who never fasts. My tip for getting cholesterol readings that are comparable with a non-faster is to make sure you have your bloods taken after a feed day and not to have more than say 8-12 hours since your last meal before the bloods is taken.

In summary, I would not worry about a single high reading, and next time follow my tips for getting a meaningful test. I got the same thing though my HDL was pretty high so the ratio between total and HDL cholesterol which is the most important indicator of cardiovascular risk was very low. In fact, your ratio is only just over 3.5 so you are also in the low risk category. If your blood pressure is OK too, then there is nothing to worry about at all.

Thanks Caroline

I did google it and found a similar explanation. Our fast day this week was Wednesday and we had the blood test done on Friday morning. We purposefully did not arrange the tests after a fast day as we wanted to get a true result. We had the blood test at 9 am and had our last meal at 6 pm the night before so maybe in future it could be better to eat later the night before.

It hasn't put us off and we will continue with this lifestyle. We both feel that the logic behind the diet makes sense. We both find it fits into our life very easily. It was just a bit of a shock to see such a difference between the results in November and the results yesterday, especially since I have never had a high cholesterol result before. We have done nothing different in the 7 weeks other than adopt this diet so it has to be related to this. My blood pressure was fine. I haven't heard of measuring the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL before. What is considered a normal ratio range?

Thank you once again for your reply.

Pat

The ratio Total / HDL is on the x-axis of the heart risk charts

http://heartuk.org.uk/health-profession ... isk-charts

Many doctors are more concerned with diagnosing statin deficiency and correcting it

[carorees]

There's some debate over what the target total:HDL should be. As you can see from the charts Phil posted it depends on your age, gender, blood pressure and smoking status. However most guidelines say under 4 or some say 3.5. Yours is 3.58 (6.1/1.7) so that's fine.

I got mine checked after over 6 months 52 & the was told the result was a "fall from 7% to 2.7%". The Doc was in a rush, but I believe that stat is something to do with building up an estimate of the probability of a heart attack over a decade. Tri's fell "from 3.6% to 2.7%". I do get the vibe I shouldn't be wasting their time as they 'have sick people to see', so will go to Medichecks for an IF panel out of interest. I think after making the effort I'd like a clear idea of the state of play, and it would be a benchmark I could use if I go 61 at some point.

There's some debate over whether there should even be a target for the ratio I would think. A target for the risk would make more sense - mine comes out at 4% on one of the calculators and no amount of fiddling gets it below 3% so I'm happy as I am knowing that of 100 people with my stats 4 will have a heart event in the next 10 years.

The "new" calculators for individual risk don't appear to be live yet, but there is an intervention tool at http://www.qintervention.org/index.php where you can see the risk and the effect on risk of various options like losing weights or taking statins. It also gives the statin side effect risks.

I'm happy with the answers and no longer stressing about the sharp rise in my total cholesterol. I'll see what happens at my next annual check up in November. Thanks again for feedback. Pat