Cholesterol !

[ZeroBurn]

Ok, just got the results of my cholesterol blood test. Which prompted some questions I had about it in general. Hopefully someone can clear this up for me.

As I understand it, there's dietary cholesterol, and the cholesterol your body produces, based mostly on genetics. They ask you to fast for 12 hrs before they draw your blood to get your cholesterol- I assume this is so the 3 cheeseburgers you ate 20 minutes ago don't report you having an LDL score of 400 when the typical range is 130.

So the question is, wouldn't the test only show you how much cholesterol your body naturally produces- not your regular, dietary cholesterol levels?

Lets say my genetics tells my liver to make a score of ... 200 cholesterol. 50 HDL and 150 LDL. My fast on sunday, followed by my blood test, confirms this. Now I spend the next 7 days eating nothing but oatmeal and avocado and olive oil (the monounsaturated fats increasing HDL, oatmeal lowering LDL), considerably dropping my LDL and heightening my HDL. now my ratio's more like .. 100 / 100. I now fast for 12 hrs, do another blood test. Wouldn't it still show 50 / 150, despite actually operating at 100 / 100 all week? Say we extend it to a month, or a year. I understand eating oatmeal lowers LDL- but what I don't understand is how the test reflects that.

[macro]

Oat meal and oat fiber will lower LDL cholesterol somewhat overtime.

cholesterol is only partly genetic, your diet and activity levels are significant factors as well. dietary cholesterol is pretty much a non issue, its saturated fat intake that causes increases in LDL cholesterol.

dietary reccs:
oat, oat fibers
decrease saturated fats
eliminate hydrogenated oils
increase omega 3 intake (fish)

supplement reccs:
sesapure (sesamin/episesamin)
Red yeast Rice extract (contains naturally occuring lovostatin)
Fish oil (high omega 3)
Flax oil (no lignans generally- also high in omega 3)

[RhodeHouse]

Exercise, don't eat like crap all the time, and don't worry about this stuff. Live your life. Driving your car is the most dangerous thing you do everyday, and you won't stop that. Driving will kill you before high cholesterol does. I'd spend my time thinking about training and getting bigger instead of cholesterol.

You either achieve your goals, or look for every excuse out there for why you couldn't.

[the doc]

the fasting profile is a much better reflector of your lipid status. In fact if you were to do what you said, there would likely be changes in your fasting profile. Dietary modifications, exercise, supplementation, and statins will all effect your fasting lipid profile because they effect the way that cholesterol is shuttled around your body and the rate of metabolization of LDLs. If you really want to understand, study the biochemistry of lipoproteins :