NO No noooooooooo!

Got the test results back yesterday, but the nurse who I spoke to on the phone earlier yesterday actually thought she was speaking to someone else... so that was good because what she said to me over the phone did not make any sense to me.

Not that my test results made any sense to me.. well at least not all of them.
It showed low levels of TSH but normal levels of T4 - which points toward a syndrome that is called "Subclinical Hyperthyroidism" (I did my own online research when I got home).

My A1c was slightly high on the test, too high for my liking. This is a sign that verifies my suspicions that I do have some kind of insulin issue...

My cholesterol was a little skew, my good (HDL) was too low and my bad ones (LDL & TriG) were too high. But I have nothing to compare it with since it was the first time I took it. I am a little against measuring cholesterol because I don't think it really shows a good picture of your health anyway.. we need the lipoproteins in order to tell a better story. But it is a starting point.

So here are my thoughts
I have been thinking for a while that I was having thyroid issues because I have such a hard time loosing weight and have gained so much since coming off the birth control over a year ago now, and on top of that I am having a very low basal temperature in the morning, over one full degree of what is considered 'normal'... But all those issues point toward Hypothyroidism and not Hyperthyroidism! How can I be still FAT while I have a hyper thyroid?!

Second, doesn't the thyroid and insulin kind of go hand in hand? Can you have hypoT with high levels of TSH? I mean, off course you can, but does it really make sense?

I have so many questions that I think I need to speak to a Endocrinologist... I don't think my levels are alarming of any kind, they are very manageable but I still want to be able to understand it a little bit better. The doctor did not want to see me yesterday, it was just the mistake of the nurse. But then she said: "He wants you have to go on a strictly diet, and we will take your tests again in February"...

Now to someone that has no idea what low TSH, high LDL, Low B12, Normal T4, Low D3, High A1c means - what kind of a diet is that person suppose to go on. Because I am PRETTY darn sure different people call different thing a diet. Weight Watchers, Jenny Graig, Atkins, South beach, GI,  No Gluten, LCHF, Count Calories... just to name of few - which one is a diet in your mind? And which one would in your mind make the best impact on the above test results???

Well, I know which one I am going to pick - and I would have done so no matter what the doctor said, but what about other people. What does 'Going on a diet' mean?? Just as what does 'I eat healthy' mean???!!!

Off course I am struggling with the questions if this is by any chance related to Yasmin... In my mind it is.. I found this article where they say "...TSH may be unintentionally suppressed during hormone replacement therapy in about 20% of hypothyroid patients..." http://www.eje-online.org/cgi/content/full/152/1/1
I simply think that my 11 years on birth control has destroyed parts of my body's own functions and while I was on it, it was simply hiding those issues. But I might only be looking for something else to blame than myself...

And another journey begins...

Express Course; Cholesterol

Translated and slightly modified by Helena Mathis from: Snabbkurs i kolesterol (blodfetter) by Andreas Eenfeldt, M.D.

The underlying reason for the low fat diet ideology is based on the theory that fat increases the cholesterol and high cholesterol generates heart disease.

But eating natural fat has never been proven to increase the risk of heart disease. In fact, many late studies, done in the 21st century, have shown that there is no health gain in lowering the intake of natural fats. On the contrary, it might even be dangerous to do so.

How dangerous is cholesterol?
Cholesterol as a key risk factor for heart disease has been heavily questioned by many, especially because cholesterol is a substance that we cannot survive without. Cholesterol is needed to protect our cells and to sustain normal hormone levels. And many of the people that suffer heart disease do not have high cholesterol levels.

A more modern view
It has been proven that the total number of the cholesterol is not a good reference to show a correlation between cholesterol and heart disease (with the exception of genetic deviation). There is a much more reliable risk analysis when looking at the different types of cholesterols.

Most of our cholesterol travels in our blood in small packages called lipoproteins with the largest being VLDL or Triglycerides > LDL > HDL; which is what most cholesterol tests will give you along with the total amount.

Triglycerides and LDL
Triglycerides and LDL is what many refers to as the bad cholesterol but there are very few that know it is crucial for keeping us alive. The only danger is if you get too much of some of them.

The fat we eat gets transported to the lever where it then gets packed into VLDL (triglycerides). These get released into the blood and bonds with cells in the body to supply energy or as cell building blocks. During this process the VLDL will shrink into a smaller size and will soon become LDL. Unless the LDL gets completely absorbed by a cell it will continue to decrease in size and can later be referred to as small-LDL. The smaller it gets the easier it will oxidize and get stuck on a damaged part in the endothelium (the blood vessel lining). And cholesterol can on this path contribute to heart diseases when added to other reactions in the body.

What is important and interesting to mention is that fat we eat is not the major reason we develop LDL cholesterol, but large amounts of fast carbohydrates like sugar and refined wheat is.

HDL
HDL is referred to as the good cholesterol and works by picking up the surplus of cholesterol in the blood and transports it back to the lever. A high level of HDL decreases statistically the risk of heart disease due to its capacity to remove small LDL that has gotten stuck in the endothelium.

The food that increases the HDL is saturated fats and fast acting carbohydrates decreases HDL.

Why have we been told a lie?
If carbohydrates gives you unhealthy types of cholesterol and fat gives you healthy cholesterol – why have we, for the past decades, been told by official authorities the complete opposite?! There are many reasons to this but the biggest basis is probably because focus was put on LDL very early as the biggest risk factor for heart disease.

They knew that saturated fat seemed to rise LDL cholesterol short term. Later there was medication in form of statins that showed to decrease both LDL cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.

All of a sudden it became very profitable to recommend people to control their cholesterol levels with statins. Pfizer’s Lipitor sold for 12.6 billion dollars in the year 2006; making it the world’s most profitable medicine. And why would they want to change this reliable cash cow?

The question is if this is not the biggest reason to why we are focusing on lowering our LDL levels as a main goal to stay away from heart disease. As new research shows, LDL comes in different sizes. The larger don’t seem to be that dangerous from what we know but are the easiest to detect because they are larger. De larger LDL particles such as VLDL increases when eating saturated fats, but the smaller more dangerous LDL particles increases when eating carbohydrates.

It is however much more profitable to sell statins to all people that have raised LDL levels than to those who just have raised small-LDL levels; as that number is probably significantly lower.

It is not only ironic but rather dangerous to accuse dietary fat to be the biggest reason for increased cholesterol levels and danger of getting heart disease. Dietary fat increases the larger LDL particles and the HDL particles – those particles that are good and necessary for us! This off course raises the total number of cholesterol showing again that the total number is far from reliable to use as a risk analysis.

If lowering dietary fats according to many heart healthy recommendations a normal person would increase their intake in fast acting carbohydrates to feel full. This on the other hand raises the small LDL particles that are hard to detect on a regular LDL test. And the carbohydrates also lower the protecting HDL particles. In the end this will most likely result in a lower total cholesterol level but with a VLDL, LDL, small LDL, and HDL quota that increases the risk of heart disease!

To eat less fat and more carbohydrates will lead to lower HDL levels and higher small LDL levels. High levels of triglycerides may be a sign of high levels of small LDL.

Prestige and Money
Many cholesterol researchers know all this very well. This is not new controversial news to them. Yet we don’t get to hear about it, why? One reason is that this goes against the older (and current) heart healthy low fat recommendations and it is hard for authorities to admit that they have been wrong all of these years. Unfortunately the human race pays for them to keep this secret with their lives.

Another reason is that the pharmaceutical companies don’t want to give up their market share of this huge cash cow and food producers don’t want to loose money on their very profitable low fat products. The result is that these new studies become disliked and companies that make profit of the old habits will oppose to result like these. And once again we are paying for it with our lives!

What about cholesterol in food?
Many times you hear that you should avoid eating too much cholesterol for example egg. The yolk has the highest cholesterol levels we know of today and is probably because it is needed to build up all the cells in the chicken. Even though we hear about restrictions in dietary cholesterol no one has been able to prove that less cholesterol in food gives better health.

It has, however, been showed that about 80% of the cholesterol found in our body is made by our body (mostly in the lever). If we eat less cholesterol the body will make more, if we eat more cholesterol the body will make less. The dietary cholesterol has pretty much no impact of your health and there is probably safe to not care of how much of it is consumed.

How should I read my cholesterol results?
Total Cholesterol – is in the most cases a very poor measurement all by itself. Most often the recommended levels are 200 or lower. About 70% of people between 30 and 50 have higher levels than 200, and about 90-95% of people older than 50 have levels over 200. (Good for statin selling business).

Triglycerides (VLDL) – A low number is good. A high number depends mostly on high intake of carbohydrates. The recommendation is 150 or lower. Over 200 may be a sign of metabolic syndrome and is a threat to your heart health.

HDL – A high number is good, natural fats increases HDL. Low levels leads to higher risk of heart disease, dietary intake of many carbohydrates decreases HDL. Men should strive for a number over 35 and women a number over 45, the higher the better.

LDL – Most often is the recommended number for LDL between 100 and130. But this is, as we have previously discussed, a hard number to interpret. The small LDL particles are the dangerous ones but also the particles that will not show up accurate on the LDL result. If your HDL is high and your triglycerides are low than that would show that most of your LDL particles are bigger and safe and your number could safely be larger than 100-130. If your HDL is low and your triglycerides high then your LDL particles are most likely a formation of many small particles and are dangerous to you and your LDL should be lower than 100-130.

Total cholesterol / HDL – A low number is good. This is easy to measure and is more recommended to use as a risk analysis for heart disease than just the total number of cholesterol, the LDL alone, triglycerides, and LDL/HDL.

The blood test of the future
As you have probably noticed there are controversies over the way to measure cholesterol and prove relationship between that and bad health. Luckily there is a much more reliable method to measure the small dangerous LDL particles than to measure triglycerides and LDL levels: Every LDL particle have one protein composition called apolipoprotein B and HDL have one protein composition called apolipoprotein A1.

By measuring the Lp(B) we get to know the total amount of LDL particles, small LDL included! By knowing your apolipoproteins you can measure the apo-quota: Lp(B)/Lp(A). This is probably the best way of measure blood fats to use it in risk factor analysis for heart disease.

Suggested quotas for men are under 0.7; 0.7-0.9 is ok but not excellent, over 0.9 means increased risk. Recommended quotas for women are under 0.6; 0.6-0.8 is ok but not excellent, over 0.8 means increased risk.

So does increased risk in this case mean that a healthy person needs medicine like today? No, the first treatment should always be change of lifestyle. If it is not enough, after trying for 6-12 months and there are other risk factors involved, not until then should statins be considered. One good lifestyle change is to start eating LCHF.

Statins
Statins are most often used to lower blood fat levels, example of statin drugs are Simvastatin and Lipitor. Statin drugs work by slowing down the enzyme (called HMGR) that produces cholesterol in the body resulting in lower levels.

The outcome of using statins is that the cells get starved with too little cholesterol and have to start using the LDL cholesterol that exists in the blood. First the body has to produce something called LDL-receptors that get attached to each cell membrane. The LDL particle will later attract to the LDL receptor and the cell will absorb the LDL particle and receive the cholesterol it needs that way.

The point with statins is to induce a deficiency of cholesterol in the cells of the body so that they will use the LDL cholesterol from the blood, and the number of LDL cholesterol in the blood will decrease.

The most interesting thing is that the body can do this transformation by itself, without the help of statin drugs! The HMGR enzyme production is related to blood insulin levels and insulin levels are directly triggered by eating fast acting carbohydrates… Let’s take it the other way…

When eating carbohydrates your insulin levels will go up fast in order to try to take care of all the sugar. Parts of the carbohydrates will be absorbed by the body and used as energy and the carbohydrates that the body can’t use right away will be stored as fat. When the body gets too much carbohydrates then what it can absorb the insulin level will spike. At the same time the high insulin level will call for an increase in HMGR enzyme resulting in a higher cholesterol production. Did you get that?

Eating fast acting carbohydrates > High insulin levels > Spiked HMGR enzyme > Faster cholesterol production > Cholesterol staying in the blood stream longer and can develop small LDL easier > Risk for heart disease

Solutions
So there are really two solutions on the issue with the risk of heart disease. One is simply to take statin drugs for the rest of your life and watch out for side effects. The other is to decrease your intake of sugars and other fast acting carbohydrates such as pasta, bread, soft drinks, juices, and dried fruit. This will also promote a lower risk of inflammations just as statin drugs are said to do. The back side of taking statin drugs (except for the side effects) without changing your lifestyle is off course that the body will always crave the sugars as its main source of energy, causing your blood sugar constantly go up and down, which often results in overweight.

Off course there are some people at very high risk that might not have time to waste and may have to do both for a while until the levels are manageable.

I will always vote for the natural way what way you choose it entirely up to you!

What is LCHF?

LCHF stands for Low Carbohydrates and High Fat diet or as many would refer to it – a better lifestyle.

This is how it works:
By eating minimal amounts of carbohydrates your blood sugar will not spike and your insulin production will stay low. The insulin works by lowering the high blood sugar as fast as possible. This means that if you eat carbohydrates your insulin production will raise to lower your blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry soon after you just ate.

The insulin also stores your fat and blocks the fat burning process, while it at the same time transforms unused carbohydrates into fat. Eating carbohydrates results in higher amounts of insulin – resulting in higher amounts of stored body fat and your body will have a harder time burning the fat it already carries.

The body is able to produce the blood sugar it needs from protein and fat from the food we eat. And by doing so the blood sugar levels will stay stable and you will never feel the sugar spikes of high’s and low’s that the carbohydrates give you.

Burning fat gives your muscles energy and your brain can also use the fat burning products as energy. If you eat normal amounts of fat, protein and vegetables the total amount of calories will stay low and you can start loosing weight without feeling hungry. Research also shows that it is not dangerous to increase the amount of fats and protein in your daily diet.

A low carbohydrate diet is perfect for people with Type II diabetes because the blood sugar will stay at a normal level even right after eating. If taking medicine for your diabetes you should gradually work your way down to a low carbohydrate diet while watching your blood sugar levels closely, so that you can lower your medication as well without reaching too low levels of blood sugar. A recommendation is to work out a plan with your doctor regarding this.

Most over weight people have tried to diet many times with the previous recommended low fat diets without succeeding. Their time is now; they will succeed with the low carbohydrate and high fat diet.

Cholesterol is always in focus when people start to talk about fat and what types of fat to eat and so on. To make it clear the amount of cholesterol in food has almost no effect on the cholesterol in your blood, because your body makes its own cholesterol when it needs to. So if you choose to eat no cholesterol your body will produce more, if you choose to eat more cholesterol high foods your body will make less.

So how do we get cholesterol and plaque blockage in our blood stream then if it is not from the fat and cholesterol we eat?

The answer goes ones again back to the insulin and the effect of eating carbohydrates and sugars. The insulin also spikes something called the HMGR activity, this is the activity that tells the body to make more cholesterol. With low amounts of insulin the HMGR activity will stay low too; telling the body to produce less cholesterol. So once again the fat in our diet is not the culprit, the carbohydrates are!

Klick on the picture to see a larger image:

4 weeks to a stronger heart

Article published in Ladies Home Journal, April 2009

4 weeks to a stronger heart – it is true. A few simple lifestyle strategies can make a huge difference to your health.
…Give your heart a healthy makeover! With just a few painless changes you can significantly lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, prevent your arteries from narrowing and strengthen your blood vessels…Absolutely! It is never too late, well as long as you are still breathing and your heart is still beating that is. I fully agree with the statement that you can change a lot in just 4 weeks, even though it is a stretch for many. The hard part is to stay in the change, make it become you and don’t fall back into old habits and comfort levels.

The reason to why I am even commenting this article is because it is in a magazine that people read, that people read and sometimes act upon. I feel that it is important that we provide the general public with the true and latest research available to us, not something that was published 20 years ago, no matter what media form it is in.

[printed in magazine] [my own comments]

Change the way you eat
The long-touted low-fat diet is yesterday’s news. The latest nutrition research suggests that maintaining your arterial superhighway is not just about avoiding as much saturated fat and processed food as possible but also about fueling your tank with what many experts call “functional foods,” those foods rich in nutrients with powerful heart-protecting (and anticancer) properties. “Focusing on low fat is overly simplistic,” says Christopher Gardner, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “When you combine natural high-fiber foods with plant sterols and unsaturated fats, you start to see cholesterol-lowering benefits.”

They are absolutely right. The 80’s low fat, high carb diet is out the door and replaced with a high natural fat and high protein intake. Unfortunately this article goes on by giving examples of what to eat, such as; wheat, cereals, bread, juice, and margarine! This to me is insane. The only way to lower your cholesterol and triglycerides is to quit eating any type of wheat and grains, lower other sugar intake such as juices and fruits, eat real natural fats such as butter, olive oil, canola oil, nuts, and avocado – NOT MARGARINE – margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic (but that is another story). Who can even make such a recommendation in a heart health article?! I would never recommend margarine to anyone, under any circumstances. Butter is real, margarine is not – it doesn’t get easier than that.

As far as the wheat and grain elimination – it might seem very strange to some, because the majority of us have grown up believing that whole wheat and grains are supposed to be healthy for us. Well the truth is that most grains contain way too much sugar for it to be beneficial. Why don’t you look for yourself? Go and get your bread package and read how many grams of carbohydrates you have in there, and then find out how much of it is sugar and how much of it is fiber… the rest is usually other gluten kinds that also is a harm to your heart health. What did you find? That the sugar outnumbers the fiber? You will find the same illustration on most bread you pick up.

Fill up on fiber
Only one type of fiber helps your heart – the viscous, or soluble, kind found in foods such as beans, oats, oat bran, barley, citrus fruits, eggplant, and okra…
You know what, most humans don’t even get half as much fiber as we should in our daily diet and my suggestion is to supplement it, at least four times a year as a fiber cleanse. But healthy fibers are found in green vegetables as well and are a much better choice than the oats and oat bran.

Cut the salt
If you’ve got pre- or full-blown hypertension, consider trying the low-sodium diet recommended by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. It’s rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and includes poultry, fish, nuts and whole grains but only small amounts of red meat, sweets and sugary drinks.
Please change this header to – Change your salt. It is not the amounts of salt; it is what kind of salt! Many say to cut the salt… but let’s think for just a moment. When you are being hospitalized what is the first thing they will give you? Something called NaCl, right in your arm into your blood stream… What is NaCl? NaCl stands for Sodium (Natrium) Chloride and is simply the chemical name for SALT!!! Plain SALT!!! We need salt to survive, plain and simple. The hard part is to get the right kind. Unprocessed salt is the way to go - most likely found in health food and holistic food stores. Once you have the right kind of salt – please salt away! Another mistake that is made in the “cut the salt” process; people cut the intake of Iodine as well. Iodine is not salt, but some salt labels can be bought with iodine and without iodine. Iodine must be supplemented if it is not taken in another way, as it is another life supporting mineral. Don’t cut the salt – change it!

But with this diet you are sure to keep your hypertension and gain some pounds, increase you cholesterol, and increase your blood pressure. The only thing I am happy to read is that they want you to avoid sugary drinks – and that includes all juices out there, light or not. As far as the low-fat dairy products: yes it is low fat, but the lower the fat the higher the carbohydrates. The carbohydrates in dairy products are lactose – lactose is another name for sugar, milk sugar. So to say that you should limit your sugary drinks and then to say that you should drink lots of milk doesn’t really add up, to me.

When Medication Makes Sense
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, diet and exercise don’t get you where you need to be. Talk to your doctor about whether one of these meds is right for you.
Well, if you keep getting the wrong guidelines, how on earth are you supposed to reach your goals? These guidelines are set so that the medical companies can reach their goals – not yours.

Drugs that lower your cholesterol
Statins – the best – known type – do a remarkable job of lowering LDL cholesterol, healing the lining of the arteries and slowing the build up of plaque. If you already have heart disease, these drugs can reduce your risk of dying from heart attack by 29 percent.
I don’t think I have to go there, but Statins are still drugs with many side effects. They are known to lower your bad LDL cholesterol, but they will also lower your good HDL cholesterol. Stay with the high natural fat and protein diet limited from wheat, grain, fruit, dairy, sugar, and juices and you should be on good way to reaching your goal. To speed up the process you need to supplement with natural Omega 3, Vitamin C, EDTA, Vitamin D3, L-Arginine, OPCs, and Magnesium.

Statins, however have little effect on HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, another blood fat. For those you may need to take prescription niacin, fibrate drugs or FDA-approved fish oil supplements, which can increase HDL by up to 30 percent and lower triglycerides by as much as 45 percent depending on the drug.

This is correct about Niacin, which is simply Vitamin B3. What is wrong is that you do NOT need to get a prescription to get it; Niacin can be found on the nutrition shelf at your supermarket. There are many kinds of Niacin, and I would avoid “no blush Niacin” as it will not do you any good, just as the slow acting Niacin. To reach preferred levels of triglycerides someone might have to supplement niacin a lot – something that should be supervised by a doctor, he/she should at least be aware that you are doing it. Start at 250 mg per day for one week and increase it with 250 mg each week until you have reached a level of 1000 mg. If your triglycerides and LDL are very high you might have to supplement with up to 5000 mg per day say William Davis M.D. in his article “Using Niacin to improve cardiovascular health”. The supplementation does not have to be FDA approved either. FDA often approves synthetic drugs before they approve natural made supplements. Why? Well that is another discussion, but let’s just say that FDA work closely with the drug companies, not the natural supplementation companies. As long as your Omega 3 is natural you are good to go. And you should take 3000-4000 mg per day to see any progress.

Pills can help your heart grow stronger
Yes – as long as you take the right ones.

Numbers you need to know…
“A strong heart needs healthy blood vessels that have smooth, Teflon-like lining,” explains John P. Cooke, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. “This lets blood move easily, not clot.”
True! And John P. Cooke is a personal favorite of mine – what this section forgets to mention is how you can make your vessels become like Teflon. What John P. Cook is talking about is L-Arginine, one of our most powerful natural occurring amino acid. L-arginine converts into nitric oxide when in your body and makes all that come true. He also suggests that we need to supplement with 5 grams of Arginine every day to get the nitric oxide effect.

This article was a very good attempt to make the public more aware, but it was a shame that L-arginine wasn’t mentioned even once. L-arginine alone could fill up page after page with great research and progress. The public need to know more about l-arginine, the public need to know that the people who discovered the nitric oxide effect derived from l-arginine won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998, the public need to know that l-arginine can change lives!

I would also suggest that in the future facts should be taken from Nutritionists and Holistic doctors as well as medical doctors interested in health care. It is also a shame that the readers have to look at a Crestor (medication for high cholesterol) add in the middle of the article. It kind of makes it look like AstraZeneca made the report…

Thank you for listening.
Looking forward for more heart health reading