Dana Gets Medical Tests: What a Low Carb Diet Has Done To My Blood Work

Tweet

Buffer

0eb1403189d066765894a6f1b7b9777f

I got basic blood work done recently, and in the interests of full disclosure I felt I ought to share the results with you.  I am 53 years old, and have been eating a low carbohydrate diet for 17 years, or 32% of my life.  In the past year I have deliberately slanted my diet toward higher fat and moderately lower protein — indeed, I shoot for 85% of my calories from fat.  My blood work is as follows:

Total Cholesterol: 202.  Some of you may be thinking “That’s too high!”  But read on.

Triglycerides: 32.  Yes, 32.

HDL: 85

LDL: 111.  Again, some of you may think that’s high.  I’ll go into that in a moment.

VLDL: 6.  The form says that anything under 50 is good.  I’d say 6 is well within the healthy range.

It also says that my heart disease risk factor is 2.38, with anything under 4.44 being healthy.

About that LDL:  It’s not much talked about, but LDL is not measured directly.  Apparently it can be done, but it’s expensive, so instead LDL is calculated using something called the Friedewald Equation.  The equation goes like this:  Total Cholesterol – (HDL + Triglycerides/5) = LDL.  This is reportedly pretty accurate for people with  average blood work.

But see that part about triglycerides/5?  When triglycerides get under 100, as they so often do on a low carbohydrate diet, one-fifth of that small number becomes quite a small number indeed.  (In my case, just 6.4.)  This throws off the equation, resulting in artificially elevated LDL values.  Indeed, at a previous visit my doc commented on my LDL being a little high.  I said “Yeah, but look at my triglycerides.  You know and I know that I could lower my LDL by raising my trigs.”  She laughed and said, “Bad idea.”

My HbA1C, the measure of average blood sugar over roughly the past three months, was 4.7, down from 5.1 a year or so ago.  This translates into an average blood sugar of 88 — that includes fasting and postprandial blood sugar, both, and everything in between.  Not too shabby for a girl who has been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and who has, in the past eight months or so, gone off both metformin and Victoza.

My doctor also ran a comprehensive metabolic panel, all of which came up stone normal.  Apparently my kidneys are not “asploding,” nor is my liver going wonky, nor any other internal creepiness.

Oh, and the day I went in to get my blood work done, my blood pressure was 120/80 –  perfect.

I am also happy to report that at 53 I still have no osteoarthritis, despite years of doing massage, I lift weights regularly, recently danced for three hours straight without wearing out or running out of breath, and can see close up without my glasses.

Lest someone assume I simply won the genetic lottery, I will point out that my paternal grandfather dropped dead of a heart attack at 58, and my father, the parent I take after, was hospitalized with heart problems at the age of 55.  No genetic jackpot here.

In short, 17 years of meat, eggs, cheese, etc, etc, appears to have done me no harm.  And a good eight months or so of deliberately increasing fat as a percentage of my calories  has measurably improved my health.

Tweet

Buffer

0eb1403189d066765894a6f1b7b9777f