Re: HbA1C dropped from 7.1 to 5.9

On Thu, 14 May 2009 17:58:24 +1000, PaulR
<dweebken@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Pardon my ignorance, but what's wrong with Lipitor or statins in
general? I don't seem to be having any side effects and the doc's
monitoring it too. How do I get the LDL under control without the
medication, or is there an alternative?

Well, first you have to be sure that you actually have a
problem with your cholesterol that needs fixing. And then,
if you do, you need to decide whether medications are the
best way to fix the problem.

I am still gathering my thoughts and information on this in
preparation for a blog post.

The following random thoughts are just that - my thoughts,
not yet facts I can back up completely at this moment.
However they are based on my own reading from many various
sources over time. Lately I have found them reinforced in
Taubes' book, but most I had read before that from other
sources.

1. High carbs leads to high triglycerides. Triglycerides are
one of the three major reported components of your lipids
panel, the other two being HDL and LDL. One that we should
get but often don't is VLDL, the dangerous one; Usually that
is estimated by dividing the trigs by 5 (in mg/dl). But that
estimate is very approximate.

2. LDL is considered by the medics to be the bad cholesterol
and most anti-cholesterol meds target that. But high trigs,
high VLDL and low HDL are actually the ones we should be
most concerned about.

3. The absolute number of our LDL is less important than the
specific number of certain components of LDL; the dangerous
ones are the small, dense particles. High triglycerides
usually indicate high proportions of those small dense
particles.

4. ALL of the foods we eat affect our cholesterol levels.
EXCESS of carbs OR fats will lead to excess trigs or LDL.

5. The past research on the relationship between cholesterol
and heart disease is misleading at best. There appears to be
shaky support for the hypothesis that lowering cholesterol,
particularly LDL, improves overall mortality and even less
support for the use of statins to do that.

6. Inadequate good fats will lead to low HDL.

7. Exercise helps increase HDL.

8. A low HDL is a better indicator of future cardiac
problems than high LDL.

9. Diabetics should aim for a trigs/HDL ratio of less than
3.0 in mg/dl or 1.3 in mmol/l.

10. Cholesterol in the foods we eat, such as eggs and
seafood, has an insignificant effect on the cholesterol in
our blood stream.

11. Low cholesterol is also dangerous and can be related to
other problems such as Parkinson's disease, cancer and other
causes of early death.

Putting that all together, I no longer worry about the level
of fats in my diet for their affect on cholesterol. I am
selective in my choices of oils, but for other reasons such
as Omega 3 content or eliminating trans-fats. I also found
that reducing carbs reduced my trigs as well as my BGs.
After I quit taking statins my LDL level is higher than my
doc would like, but I am unconcerned at that because my
trigs and HDL, while not brilliant, are reasonable and my
trigs/HDL ratio is OK.

Also, when you look back through that list, two things stand
out to me. If I am going to worry about cholesterol at all,
the two things that will improve it most are moderating
carbs for better trigs and increasing exercise for better
HDL. It seems a happy coincidence that those are the same
two things that improve my BGs most.

Some references for you in no particular order.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/23/11/1679?maxtoshow=&amp;HITS=&amp;hits=&amp;RESULTFORMAT=1&amp;andorexacttitle=and&amp;andorexacttitleabs=and&amp;fulltext=triglycerides+to+HDL&amp;andorexactfulltext=phrase&amp;searchid=1&amp;FIRSTINDEX=0&amp;sortspec=relevance&amp;resourcetype=HWCIT
Ratio of Triglycerides to HDL Cholesterol Is an Indicator of
LDL Particle Size in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and
Normal HDL Cholesterol Levels
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=408572
Effects of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet on
VLDL-triglyceride assembly, production, and clearance
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/79/5/774
Increased consumption of refined carbohydrates and the
epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the United States: an
ecologic assessment
http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/abstract/50/5/409
Effect of the Magnitude of Lipid Lowering on Risk of
Elevated Liver Enzymes, Rhabdomyolysis, and Cancer

[Note: Before you try too hard to get LDL under 100, you
might find this worth browsing through and possibly
discussing with your doctor]
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/179/5/427
Independent associations between low-density lipoprotein
cholesterol and cancer among patients with type 2 diabetes
mellitus

[Or this article in Science Daily]:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080404161832.htm
Pieces Coming Together In Parkinson's, Cholesterol Puzzle
the original paper is here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/117950445/PDFSTART

Cheers, Alan, T2, Australia.
--
d&e, metformin 2000 mg
Everything in Moderation - Except Laughter.
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com (Aspartame)
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com (Jerash, an Ancient City in Jordan)
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: HbA1C dropped from 7.1 to 5.9
    ... How do I get the LDL under control without the ... problem with your cholesterol that needs fixing. ... the other two being HDL and LDL. ... is estimated by dividing the trigs by 5. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Re: Exercise and raising HDL
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  • Re: HbA1C dropped from 7.1 to 5.9
    ... How do I get the LDL under control without the medication, ... the other two being HDL and LDL. ... is estimated by dividing the trigs by 5. ... LDL is considered by the medics to be the bad cholesterol ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
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