Metabolic Health

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Alifelongme
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 26, 2021 5:12 pm

Metabolic Health

Post by Alifelongme »

Lately, I’ve been going down the metabolic health rabbit hole. What I found so far:

1. Enough lean body mass to deal with occasional excess dietary fat and glucose - check
2. Waist to height ratio < 1/2 - check
3. Blood pressure < 125/75 - check
4. Fasting blood glucose < 90 - check, but could be better
5. Lipids:
- Total cholesterol < 200 - check
- LDL < 100 - no, darn it!
- HDL > 40 - check
- triglycerides < 100 - check
- triglycerides/HDL ratio < 2 - check
- LDL/HDL ratio < 2 - no!
6. Liver function: ALT enzyme < 25 - check
7. Uric acid < 5 - check

I’m good on all counts except for the lipid panel. My LDL goes up every time I eat anything with saturated fat including eggs, fish, or olive oil. It behaves somewhat ok when fat comes from unprocessed plant food like raw avocado. But I still can’t get it under 100. Even on the strict vegan, no gluten, no added sugars, no vegetable oils in a bottle diet, the lowest fasting LDL I could get is around 120. And even that is at the expense of HDL going under 40.

Granted, it’s already better than it used to be 2 years ago when I was shocked by results of my lipid test showing total cholesterol 267 with LDL 207. But still…

I don’t want to go on statins when I inevitably relax diet restrictions to get more protein for muscle maintenance and training.

Does anyone have the experience or suggestions for fixing it without meds?

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Lemur
Posts: 1612
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:40 am
Location: USA

Re: Metabolic Health

Post by Lemur »

Too many metrics but a good heuristic for this is maintaining a healthy BMI. For the most part, this will keep you in healthy range of all those metrics. While a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is ideal, try to aim just under 21. Tough to do in our current food environment :) but BMI 22 is a good compromise.

Adding exercise on top of that is even better...that will lower blood pressure and decrease heart rate which is a signal that you cycle blood very efficiently.

Body fat percentage is technically a better metric but more difficult to measure. If you have more lean body mass (muscle) through exercise, genetics, etc., then yes your BMI could be higher but you could be 'healthier' than someone with lower BMI.

Perhaps the easiest gauge to metabolic health is knowing your blood pressure, resting heart rate, and visually taking a look at your body. If you can see some slight ab definition, and the other metrics are good to check every now and then, you're probably good.
Last edited by Lemur on Tue Aug 03, 2021 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Bankai
Posts: 986
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:28 am

Re: Metabolic Health

Post by Bankai »

Alifelongme wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:57 pm
My LDL goes up every time I eat anything with saturated fat including eggs, fish, or olive oil. It behaves somewhat ok when fat comes from unprocessed plant food like raw avocado. But I still can’t get it under 100. Even on the strict vegan, no gluten, no added sugars, no vegetable oils in a bottle diet, the lowest fasting LDL I could get is around 120. And even that is at the expense of HDL going under 40.
It could take a good few months to see the results - did you give vegan diet enough time to work its magic? To get it really low you also want it to be whole food, plant based and not just any vegan as there are plenty of very unhealthy vegan foods, usually fried. Main building blocks should be: beans, whole grains, veggies, fruits, nuts & seeds. If you eat only that for a few months, there's almost no way your LDL won't go much lower.

Checking my stats, the first time I had lipid profile tested was around the time I also went meat-free (2011) and my total was 198, LDL 109 & HDL 77. Next time I had it checked 3 years later (so 3 years with no meat and much less dairy/eggs/fish) it was total 158, LDL 71, HDL 70. These were my best stats ever (humans are born with total ~150 and it usually only goes downhill from there), but it took a long time on sustained, healthy diet to get there. Since then my LDL was between 70-96, depending on how strick my diet was, but never again did it creep above 100. You can get there, just need to perservere and give whole food, plant based diet enough time.

Alifelongme
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed May 26, 2021 5:12 pm

Re: Metabolic Health

Post by Alifelongme »

@Lemur, thanks! I do check my body composition and train BJJ. BMI 23, body fat 28%. Could be better, but I’m 58 yo female, so…

@Bankai: that’s the problem: 2 years of the diet you describe + no eggs or milk + no gluten/bread + no added sugar + no oils from the bottle, only raw avocados, seeds, or nuts. All veggies I eat are raw, steamed or boiled. Lots of fruit. Still no luck :(
But your example gives me hope, thanks!

white belt
Posts: 1452
Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:15 am

Re: Metabolic Health

Post by white belt »

If you've already tried pretty serious dietary interventions (and it sounds like you have), then your high LDL is likely due to genetics. There isn't much that you can do about that. There are many people who are physically very fit, not obese, and eat healthy diets who still end up with atherosclerosis due to genetics.

Bonde
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon May 31, 2021 5:21 am

Re: Metabolic Health

Post by Bonde »

What is LDL in mmol/L?

Smoker or past smoker?

Any health issues?

It seems unlikely that you will need statins except for genetic dyslipidemia according to the Danish guideline: https://nbv.cardio.dk/forebyggelse
Your risk for a cardiovascular incident is likely low. In itself LDL is not a good predictor for disease as far as I remember but new studies could have been published, not my specialty.

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