anyone know how fast cholesterol levels change with diet?

Jeannemrm · 10-09-2007, 03:05 AM

When I first began to suspect PCOS and insulin resistance, I changed my diet to a low carb, lower fat, low sugar diet and cut way back on caffeine and nutrasweet. My cholesterol hadn't been checked before that point, but about 10 days afterwards, I got it checked at one of these Kmart traveling clinics and it was pretty good. My HDL was 100, just on the edge of high optimal, and 'good cholesterol' was a little low and my tryglycerides were fairly good. Question is, was 10 days on the low carb diet enough to change my cholesterol levels or does it take weeks or months to go down? My dr said that since my cholesterol was good, that was another thing against PCOS etc...but was my cholesterol only good because I'd changed my diet?

Jeanne

ChelNY · 10-09-2007, 06:18 PM

I don't think you can know, since you don't know what it was before you changed your diet. High cholesterol can come from what you eat or from your body manufacturing too much. So, if it's genetic, changing your diet won't help much. If your diet had too much, then it may have lowered some with your healthier habits. But since you didn't have a baseline, how can you know?

Jeannemrm · 10-09-2007, 06:28 PM

I don't know...I would have thought they would have run that with a basic health panel of tests they originally did.....but they didn't....which is why when they had one of these traveling clinics at kmart, I got it done. I was expecting it to be rather high considering I had been eating a lot of mac and cheese, ramen noodles and other high carb/fat things until I changed it..so was surprised when it came back only 157....especially with my weight (about 220 at that time).

August · 10-10-2007, 02:48 AM

This is counter to what I would expect but one time I had blood drawn right around Thanksgiving and the nurse seemed to think that having blood drawn before, what is for most people is a big food day, would make a significant difference verses doing it a few days afterwards. (By the way I am not a huge Thanksgiving food person). Again that is not what I would have expected to be the case and I don't know if she knew what she was talking about.