Can Someone Explain What Cholesterol Values Should REALLY Be?

[sweetwaterpickle]

Can someone please explain what cholesterol values should REALLY be?

I follow an animal based diet and am very much anti PUFA. My husband (48m) doesn’t follow this diet quite as strictly, and unfortunately he’s had 3 strokes in the last 3 months. He had insanely high blood pressure (280/130) and then after lowering it with medication it was around 150/95, and he had two additional strokes. He wasn’t on a statin at this time since everyone saw his BP and thought surely this was to blame. I do think it was for the first at least. His cholesterol (per western medical standards) has never been crazy (pre stroke tri: 116, HDL: 47, LDL: 99) and now ( post stroke tri: 133, HDL: 37, LDL: 144).

I have read a lot about the western concept of cholesterol being totally fallacious and obviously a statin was the last thing we wanted, but my god he cannot have another stroke. I figured you all here might have a more solid grasp on what the truth behind the cholesterol situation is and what our values really should be. At this point, we are too scared for him to be off the statin, but I also don’t know what numbers spouted by some of these doctors are definitely bullshit. They want him at 70 LDL.

Please be kind. We’ve been through so much. I’m just looking for some knowledge from those of you with a better understanding than me. We are very scared but also I don’t want to thrash his hormones and overall wellbeing with a high intensity statin unnecessarily. I just don’t know what’s true anymore after hearing the western perspective spouted over and over and over again with all the doctors and hospital visits.

[Janelle525]

@sweetwaterpickle From what I know low cholesterol in someone with metabolic syndrome indicates liver problems, lack of bile. My husband was like this leading up to his obesity problems. You have to earn a low cholesterol number with good health.

Trigs over 110 indicate fatty liver.
You want trigs divided by HDL to be 2 or under.
If he is eating a lot of carbs and fats together this will cause bad cholesterol numbers.

This guy's videos have been super informative. I learned that strokes and heart attacks are caused by unstable uncalcified plaques: https://youtu.be/yYLym9PiJtA?si=DJqD3VtIk63KESRy

He goes over how he stabilized his plaques (we all have plaques when we get old, you want to stabilize them).

[LucH]

Hi,
Here is not a direct answer to your question (How much cholesterol) but to optimize le situation (to recover).

I’d take into account the next points

• No statin without Q10. But it won’t solve anything.
• Cholesterol is generally not the culprit. Too high LDL is the witness of a problem. Not the source of the problem. You’re not going to accuse the fireman to be present at the place of the disaster (fire). (...)
• PTH must be in the lines to avoid calcification from bone resorption. I target 850 mg Ca from food. Not less than 650 mg, but mind then the acid-base balance is reached. Potassium is often too low (from fruits and vegetables) 4500 mg K.
• Vitamin K2 is required to inhibit calcium accumulation in the arteries.
• A lot of vitamin D (4-5 000 Units) without adequate vitamin K2 and magnesium contribute to calcification. 450 mg Mg. I’d take 2 x 300 mg bisglycinate Mg powder in a shake (with 100 ml orange juice or water). With a meal.

Key ideas
Do you do well by taking 4 to 5000 IU from Vit D3?
An excess of vitamin D exercises toxicity by inducing a deficiency in vitamin K.
Editor's note: Vit D3 supplementation above 400 to 2000 IU, without input of Vit K2, induces inappropriate stimulation. You need Vit K2 to avoid atherosclerosis, calcium deposit in the arteries and joints.
80 % of people are deficient in vitamin D and in magnesium. People who do not supplement themselves in D3 have their MGP not activated up to 30 %. Even more if you are old.
Osteocalcin, GLA matrix protein (MGP), even rich protein, are inhibitors of soft tissue calcification and need to be carboxylated / activated by vitamin K.
Vitamins A and D regulate the expression of the GLA matrix protein (MGP) which is responsible for bone mineralization and protection against the calcification of the arteries. MGP can only fulfill its function once it has been activated by vitamin K2. In the bone, vitamin D would play a synergistic role with PTH by stimulating the proliferation of osteoclasts and bone resorption.
There is an interaction between vitamins A D3 K2.

Vitamin K2 is the substance that makes the vitamin A- and vitamin D-dependent proteins come to life.

While vitamins A and D act as signaling molecules, telling cells to make certain proteins, vitamin K2 activates these proteins by conferring upon them the physical ability to bind calcium. In some cases these proteins directly coordinate the movement or organization of calcium themselves; in other cases the calcium acts as a glue to hold the protein in a certain shape. In all such cases, the proteins are only functional once they have been activated by vitamin K.

Sources

1. At high vit D levels, vit D increases bone resorption and promotes release of Ca & Ph from the bone..
   http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/874690-overview
   => Not to high vitamin D3 without adequate levels of vitamin k2. See “Interaction between vitamins A D K (Synergy)”. Vitamin K2 is the substance that makes the vitamin A- and vitamin D-dependent proteins come to life. While vitamins A and D act as signalling molecules, telling cells to make certain proteins, vitamin K2 activates these proteins by conferring upon them the physical ability to bind calcium. In some cases these proteins directly coordinate the movement or organization of calcium themselves; in other cases the calcium acts as a glue to hold the protein in a certain shape. In all such cases, the proteins are only functional once they have been activated by vitamin K.
   *) Vitamin D stimulates bone resorption?
   Vitamin D and Parathyroid hormone stimulate osteoclast cells to break down bone, releasing calcium into the blood.
   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232208691_The_effect_of_vitamin_D_on_osteoblasts_and_osteoclasts
   Vitamin D, when administered in large doses, stimulates osteoclastic bone resorption.
   In patients with severe vitamin D deficiency, the anabolic effect of vitamin D is mediated primarily through increased serum calcium, whereas active vitamin D can stimulate bone formation in vitamin D-replete animals, independently of serum calcium or parathyroid hormone level.

See details on this post: Calcification of arteries and inactivated MGP . Vitamin D - Are you helping or hurting?
--- (link to come)
*) Vitamin K is required to inhibit calcium accumulation in the arteries
http://www.plthealth.com/news/articles/vitamin-k-required-inhibit-calcium-accumulation-arteries-new-paper-thrombosis-and
A new publication by Schurgers et al., titled Matrix Gla-protein: The calcification inhibitor in need of vitamin K elucidates the pivotal importance of vitamin K in the activation of Matrix Gla Protein (MGP), the most potent inhibitor of vascular calcification known.
*) Vitamin D exerts toxicity by inducing a deficiency of vitamin K.
According to Professor Cees Vermeer:
"The only mechanism for arteries to protect themselves from calcification is via the vitamin K-dependent protein MGP. MPG is the most powerful inhibitor of soft tissue calcification presently known, but non-supplemented healthy adults are insufficient in vitamin K to a level that 30 percent of their MGP is synthesized in an inactive form. So, protection against cardiovascular calcification is only 70 percent in the young, healthy population, and this figure decreases at increasing age."
*) The Role of Vitamin K in Soft-Tissue Calcification
http://advances.nutrition.org/content/3/2/166.abstract
Vitamin K–dependent proteins have been identified to be involved in regulating soft-tissue calcification. Osteocalcin, matrix Gla protein (MGP), and possibly Gla-rich protein are all inhibitors of soft-tissue calcification and need vitamin K–dependent carboxylation for activity.

[wrl]

Fyi, PTH = parathyroid hormone
For context on PTH, see https://raypeatexplained.com/ray-peat-on-parathyroid-hormone/

[yerrag]

@Janelle525 said in Can Someone Explain What Cholesterol Values Should REALLY Be?:

@sweetwaterpickle From what I know low cholesterol in someone with metabolic syndrome indicates liver problems, lack of bile. My husband was like this leading up to his obesity problems. You have to earn a low cholesterol number with good health.

Trigs over 110 indicate fatty liver.
You want trigs divided by HDL to be 2 or under.
If he is eating a lot of carbs and fats together this will cause bad cholesterol numbers.

This guy's videos have been super informative. I learned that strokes and heart attacks are caused by unstable uncalcified plaques: https://youtu.be/yYLym9PiJtA?si=DJqD3VtIk63KESRy

He goes over how he stabilized his plaques (we all have plaques when we get old, you want to stabilize them).

Hi Janelle, I wanna see what this doctor has to say. I'm just on the 12th minute. And I don't like his lo-carb messaging. Maybe you don't it either, because there may be something else redeeming that is in this video. I'll get back to the video, and give my thoughts. Welcome to the next phase of our learnings on bioenergetics aka Ray Peat Defanged.

[yerrag]

@yerrag

So he went lo carb because he considered himself pre-diabetic because on his OGTT his highest blood sugar was 183. Only shows he is not familiar with how to interpret an OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test). He doesn't say if he used a 2hr OGTT or a 4hr OGTT. Likely he used the next to useless watered down version of the 5hr OGTT, as the 2 hr kind will just show you the highest blood sugar that happens at the start of the OGTT. So much for name dropping that he is from the highly regarded but highly overrated John Hopkins.

He hasn't been schooled on Ray Peat's bioenergetic principles. He didn't go cold turkey on PUFAs as he didn't get the memo PUFAs have a lot to do with being diabetic as well as being hypoglycemic. Instead he went with rhe conventional wisdom of diabetes being "associated" with plaque formation without really telling us how diabetes causes plaque formation and subsequent strokes.

He showed us the usefulness of the CIMT in detecting plaque, to his credit, because it is a useful test. But not every stroke has to do with plaque forming on the carotid arteries. In fact, if the plaque stayed put and did not ever spill out from a ruptured fibrous cap, a stroke would not have occurred. I believe that I could cause myself to experience a stroke by simply taking an overdose of proteolytic enzymes (such as serrapeptidase or nattokinase) as that would cause the fibrous cap to lyse and rupture, and all tha necrotic plaque (that used to be tucked safely between the intimate and media layers of an artery) would be released and plug up smaller arteries and arterioles.

He showed that the plaque size reduced after he changed his lifestyle and started also taking supplements. That is an amazing thing but I like to think that it wasn't due to becoming lo-carb but because he ate natto regularly, and that had nattokinase in it that is safe to take as the enzyme slowly ate away the plaque with its lysing action.

He had to exercise a lot, though, to burn away fats that would have accumulated. I wonder if he stopped doing his daily grind whether he would still be trim. True health is not having to work so hard at burning calories externally as internally he would be burning enough calories to be trim.

He uses magnesium chloride as a supplement. A no-no if he understood it to be an acidic load thst ingested daily causes his internal ecf acidity to build up. This destroys acid base balance so much needed for proper sugar metabolism, as it would not interfere with tissue oxygenation, to say rhe least.

He uses small quantities of static to the tune of 5mg per day. I'm glad he doesn't advocate small amount of cyanide daily as well. But why he has to recommend atatins shows he still believe in the much-mocked cholesterol theory of the charlatan Ancel Keys.

Note: Interesting that he said his LDL rose to 180, and that to him is a good thing. Something I thought funny, as that is very much counter to standard medical thought but in agreement with what haidut is saying. That high LDL is not as bad thing.

But the doctor didn't explain his thoughts. He was probably testing if his audience was still awake.

[yerrag]

@sweetwaterpickle

I truly believe right where our doctors draw the line between good and bad as far as total cholesterol is concerned, at 200, us where ai draw the line as well.

Below 200 is healthy for them. For me, it is above.

If we're not making enough cholesterol, something is really wrong with us. As cholesterol, among other less heralded beneficial uses in the body, is the base stock for a healthy body to keep maintaining its health by producing its own hormones and steroids. Taking statins to lower it not only deprives the body of a good substance, but also makes our body deficient in CoQ10, needed to keeps our blood vessels in good form and function.

But if cholesterol gets very high, it's a red flag to look into our own ability to produce hormones and steroids, and this ability can be lost when we lose the energy thet happens when we are lose optimal metabolism.

In a state of imbalance brought about by poor metabolism, the obvious fix is to address the metabolic bottleneck, and unblock it. It is easy to say it, but it takes a wholistic understanding of the way our body works. Simply put, if we understand the body as a delicately balanced perpetual energy making machine, where each system is dependent on one another to work, we have to keep the machine tuned. To be on a virtuous cycle and not prey prey to be on a vicious cycle.

But when one part starts to work poorly, the entire body will adapt to make up for it. To keep the part and the whole working. Until such time it heals itself and the body gets back to its virtuous cycle.

But if that part doesn't heal itself, such as when doctors intervene and patches it up with a bad part, and actually even causes other parts to fail, it becomes harder for the body to be made whole again and be back in a virtuous mode.

And as more intervention by rhe medical system occurs, a virtuous system gradually turns into a vicious cycle. This becomes the proverbial money pit, and the road to perdition.

The high blood pressure is a natural and beneficial adaptation by the body. If only because increasing blood pressure is like increasing water pressure to make sure water reaches long distances of piping clogged already with calcium deposits that keep water from reaching a plant or tree that would die if dehydrated. If blood pressure is not increased to compensate for plugged up capillaries that feed our organs, wouldn't our organs start to slowly fail until they become dead, as we go together with them?

Yet our doctors see high blood pressure as evil, and would even go as much as saying it is THE cause of heart attacks and strokes?

Oftentimes, the poor and uninsured are better off, as they have no choice but to not have doctors intervene, for they can at least have a self-healing body and ita wisdom to do the work for them. All they have to do is to provide the proper nourishment that does not need insurance nor great wealth to provide.

It is hard though, as we are all brought up under an education system that teaches us to delegate to experts.

[Janelle525]

@yerrag Thanks for the review. I'm glad to see you are still around! I know you dealt with high blood pressure so it's nice to see it not being a death sentence. What age group are you in? (of course the older you get the higher the likelihood of death! )

Yeah I was not pro-low carb, but.... my husband went carnivore after having clear signs of metabolic syndrome and he is losing a significant amount of weight. It is showing signs of harming his health though. But his liver has had to process all that fat which a lot of it was likely loaded with toxins. All without any bile acid binders. He is going to add back in carbs once he gets to a better weight. Unfortunately this will likely cause high blood sugar as he is now used to burning ketones.

I agree that we need cholesterol. I don't agree with using statins. I did not know what actually causes a heart attack or stroke, so I thought the video was useful in understanding what causes death in the vast majority of people in the world (including Ray Peat!).

My cholesterol numbers were getting pretty bad on a lot of ice cream. I am doing better now with less saturated fat and sugar and more starches and fibers. Which is also reversing a longstanding patch of psoriasis.

[yerrag]

@Janelle525 said in [Can Someone Explain What Cholesterol Values Should REALLY Be?].(/post/26866):

@yerrag Thanks for the review. I'm glad to see you are still around! I know you dealt with high blood pressure so it's nice to see it not being a death sentence. What age group are you in? (of course the older you get the higher the likelihood of death! )

I'm just past sixty. And currently at 190/130 with my BP. It is much lower than it was 2-3 years ago at
degenaturation 240/160, before I resolved a longstanding low-grade (ie no fever) internal infection that has to do with my periodontal infection translocating internally. Am working now on the other cause of my high BP, which involves lead toxicity. I believe identifying the root cause/s of my high bp and fixing the root cause is the only way to correctly high BP. Instead of what doctors do now to their patients by simply taking whatever drugs to just lower the high BP. My approach does not cause my metabolism to be downgraded as I believe in order to maintain good metabolism the body has to compensate by increasing BP, in the face of an existing toxic or infectious pathology. The doctor's method leads to metabolic downregulation, which is akin to increasing reductive stress. If only by causing the flow of blood to be reduced in the perfusion of our vital organs, it leads to accelerated degeneration ans premature failure of our vital organs. I concede this is hard to prove using scientism, but scientism hardly proves anything anyway. By scientism I mean the overrated used of evidence-based medicine that is inherently flawed in many aspects.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had heart failure last year. As expected, my cardiologist, who while saving me from dying from an acute cause, blamed my high BP for the heart failure and for about 3 months I was taking BP medication just to see what it could do for me. But because the acute condition was poor oxygen delivery from a self-induced bronchitis, which led to a metabolic breakdown in my system (it is shorthand for a cascading effect on my metabolic health) that led to my heart failure, I knew it had nothing to do with my high BP. So I stopped my BP medication and am continuing to work on lowering my BP by addressing the other cause that remains- lead toxicity.

I am just waiting to find the right time to begin my protocol to chelate lead from my system using Emeramide. This would be my second time to use Emeramide as the first time I used it last year, I rushed through its use notwithstanding my bronchitis condition, which turned out to be a perfect storm that led to my heart failure.

The morale from it was not to try to treat my lead toxicity while I am still healing from an existing pathology, which was bronchitis. As the healing crisis from the treatment would very well increase the stress from an existing condition I have not yet healed from.

But I don't regret what I went through, as being my own doctor has its risks, but relying on a doctor who lacks the depth and breadth of healing from a wholistic standpoint- will never fix me of my high blood pressure and if there is something considered a fix, it would be like a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and the consequences would be devastating as it leads further towards the end result of death by iatrogenic causes.

Yeah I was not pro-low carb, but.... my husband went carnivore after having clear signs of metabolic syndrome and he is losing a significant amount of weight. It is showing signs of harming his health though. But his liver has had to process all that fat which a lot of it was likely loaded with toxins. All without any bile acid binders. He is going to add back in carbs once he gets to a better weight. Unfortunately this will likely cause high blood sugar as he is now used to burning ketones.

I think your approach is sound. I would say that a gradual approach of increasing carb and decreasing protein in the macro profile can slowly bring him back to a healthy sugar-dominant metabolic pathway towards better health.

When I wasn't handling carbs very well before, I had experienced good feelings of health eating a meal that was both carb rich and protein rich. I didn't know why then, but now I know. And I think you also know why.

I agree that we need cholesterol. I don't agree with using statins. I did not know what actually causes a heart attack or stroke, so I thought the video was useful in understanding what causes death in the vast majority of people in the world (including Ray Peat!).

At the very least, I appreciate my body knowing how to protect me with high blood pressure, as it is what forces blood to keep feeding our organs and tissues, despite the blockages. Without the high pressure, more strokes would have occurred.

Just by unnecessarily lowering our blood pressure, many more strokes and deaths have been the result. But that is just my logic.

My cholesterol numbers were getting pretty bad on a lot of ice cream. I am doing better now with less saturated fat and sugar and more starches and fibers. Which is also reversing a longstanding patch of psoriasis.

Starch and fiber have always been useful to take in place of straight sugar, which are not suitable for people who cannot handle a large sudden load of sugar going into their to the blood stream.

For many years, I was eating brown rice, which is starch with fiber, and I never thought I could see the day I would go back to eating white rice.

[Janelle525]

@yerrag Thanks for your reply!
Well you made it pretty far with that high of blood pressure! But the heart failure is definitely no bueno!

I've seen that blood pressure is a measure of hydration status. How many electrolytes there are. Have you ever tried drinking say 2-3 liters of water in a day and seeing what that does to your blood pressure? For my husband he never went above 150/90, but he always drinks lots of water.

[Insomniac]

@yerrag It's a miracle you're alive with bp that high. At least your pulse pressure improved from 80 to 50 but your heart will have to enlarge if you don't bring it down.

[yerrag]

@Janelle525 said in Can Someone Explain What Cholesterol Values Should REALLY Be?:

@yerrag Thanks for your reply!
Well you made it pretty far with that high of blood pressure! But the heart failure is definitely no bueno!

I've seen that blood pressure is a measure of hydration status. How many electrolytes there are. Have you ever tried drinking say 2-3 liters of water in a day and seeing what that does to your blood pressure? For my husband he never went above 150/90, but he always drinks lots of water.

Have tried everything under the sun but the real cause here is low blood volume sue to low albumin brought about by a continual churn of albumin being oxidized and excreted via urine. Albumin being the chief antioxidant in the ecf and I have a lot of spillover ROS from phagocytic action on lead toxins and infection.

[yerrag]

@Insomniac said in Can Someone Explain What Cholesterol Values Should REALLY Be?:

@yerrag It's a miracle you're alive with bp that high. At least your pulse pressure improved from 80 to 50 but your heart will have to enlarge if you don't bring it down.

Yeah, I'm not only alive but thriving but what I give up is high virility. the body knows what it prioritizes. yes, the heart is enlarged but not taking high BP meds compromises and harms my kidneys and liver and I believe keeps me from dialysis (iatrogenic ckd from BP drugs).

[Insomniac]

@yerrag I never heard blood pressure medication can cause kidney disease.

Is it from the lowered pressure or were they kidney toxic independent of the lowered pressure?

Rice diet doctor Kempner treated a patient with a very enlarged heart with a long water fast in a hospital setting and it shrank to normal from the account of someone that worked with him.

He also cured extreme hypertension with the diet which was extremely low salt and low fat and protein.

[yerrag]

@Insomniac it's hard to prove using scientism methods when there are many variables. just use logic. when these BP drugs cause acidic imbalance it can be logically inferred that the cells will accumulate calcium and internally calcify and this will eventually lead to fibrosis as the body adapts. the kidneys and liver will shrink as a result.

kempners methods work for the context it is meant for. my context as I explained earlier differs.

[zorba990]

@sweetwaterpickle You may wish to consider adding tissue integrity factors like bioflavonoids (hesperidin, rutin, etc). The balloon pressure is reduced but the integrity of the balloon can still be weak. There is a formed product called Cyruta Plus that a chiropractor can prescribe but in my experience up to 3g rutin is quite safe long term and will help reduce the chances of another stroke.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014299922002345#:~:text=Rutin%2C a dietary flavonoid%2C has,against ICH stroke remained unexplored.](link url)

*Abstract

Intracerebral hemorrhagic (ICH) stroke is a major cause of death and disability globally, with no proper treatment available so far. Rutin, a dietary flavonoid, has shown protection against cerebral ischemic stroke due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory attributes. However, the efficacy of rutin against ICH stroke remained unexplored. Therefore, in the current study, we investigated the effect of rutin in an ICH stroke zebrafish larva model. The larvae were exposed to atorvastatin (1.25 μM) in system water for induction of experimental ICH. Rutin treatment reduced the hematoma size, ROS production and decreased apoptosis in the zebrafish larvae brains. Reduction in the malondialdehyde and protein carbonyl level in the rutin-treated larvae also indicated quenching of the free radicals. The treatment increased the expression of tight junction claud5a gene and decreased the mRNA level of matrix metalloproteases (mmp2 and mmp9). Furthermore, rutin treatment also attenuated the genomic expression of oxidative markers (nrf2, hmox1a, sod1, and gpx) and inflammatory genes (il6, tnfa, il10, and irf2a) related to ICH. The Gsk-3β activity was also downregulated, and a normal pool of β-catenin and Nrf2 was maintained in the larvae treated with rutin. The current study suggested that rutin protects ICH stroke via suppressing oxidative stress and inflammatory events in a zebrafish model.*

[CrumblingCookie]

@yerrag
Not all ARBs are equal. Would be interesting to read which one you tried. Olmesartan has actually been shown to be potentially very protective for all things vascular and for the kidneys, improving their filtration functions. If you like to you could read up on that ARB specifically.

[yerrag]

@CrumblingCookie I only used calcium channel blockers and Cox inhibitors so far, not having tried arbs. it may help the kidneys so I could be wrong about arbs effect on kidneys. since you and peat highly recommend arbs, and I'm ignorant about this class of drugs (even though peat sings praises of it endlessly during COVID), I'm still of the opinion that it merely lowers my BP without addressing or fixing the root causes of my high BP. It still isn't the ideal solution.

I've been told take the drug and then deal with finding the root cause, but even without taking the drug, i already find it very hard to eliminate the cause after identifying it, which was already hard to do in the first place. Also consider that taking the drug would just as well make me lose sight of finding the root cause and fixing it. Plus it adds a confounding element to troubleshooting.

[Insomniac]

@yerrag The arbs probably won't bring you to normal. You can still use improvements in blood pressure diagnostically while being at a safer bp and protecting the kidneys.

[yerrag]

@Insomniac

Have you personally used arbs and experienced any side effects? I think it's a given as all pharma drugs have side effects.

When I used a calcium channel blocker and a Cox inhibitor, I was also using a diuretic because a side effect of those drugs was edema. And because I was using a diuretic, I had to take a potassium supplement because I would get cramps. But what I was concerned most about is losing my acid base balance, as a chronically acidic state messes with heart rate and pumping efficiency, and the cell easily takes in more calcium from the ecf as internal calcification builds up towards fibrosis, which beings about degeneration in the liver and kidneys as they garden and shrink.