My blood results are in - how the paleo diet is affecting my cholesterol

Before I adopted a primal lifestyle six months ago I was in that horrible fog of not knowing what was wrong with me.  I had numerous blood tests, amongst every other test under the sun, to try and find out what was wrong.  At the time my blood test results were 'unremarkable' to use my Doctor's words. I was fine, there was no sign of inflammation, diabetes, autoimmune, high cholesterol. I think there may have been a quick question regarding depression as there was seemingly nothing wrong with me at all.

Skip forward six months and we now know what I'm dealing with - gut dysbiosis, SIBO and leaky gut. I have turned my food pyramid on it's head.  Gone is the low fat high carb diet of 25 years and in came the high fat low carb paleo primal style of eating.  Ditching the carby grains was easy but I was a little bit more apprehensive about eating the fat.  Fat? Really?  Once I realised how calm eating fat makes you feel, how satisfied you can be for literally hours, none of that jittery 'dothery' mad scramble to eat every couple of hours - it made sense.

How is all this fat affecting my cholesterol?
Although I had read the convincing research that fat doesn't give you heart disease (I am sparing you the research but if this is new to you read more here.) in the back of my mind I was still slightly concerned - 'are you sure all of these tablespoons of butter aren't clogging my arteries?' So I booked in for some more blood tests as an exciting before and after pre primal and primal experiment.

The results?

Cholesterol down 5.6 to 5.4 (<5.5 NHF ideal)

HDL (good) Cholesterol up 1.5 to 1.7 (>1.00)

LDL (bad) Cholesterol down 3.8 to 3.4 (< 3.0 low risk)

Triglycerides same at 0.6 (<2.0 fasting)

Risk for coronary heart disease down 3.7 to 3.2  (3.0 - 5.0 average risk)

 

 

So overall an improvement and a reduction in the risk for coronary heart disease by eating fat and reducing sugar and carbs in my diet.  The thing I was most excited about was that my iron levels.  My iron has always been abysmally low.  On the scale of 30-300 ug/L my last blood test came in at a sorry 9!  Off the scale.  Take an iron supplement the Doctor had advised but this led to constipation so I stopped.  Rae my fab Naturopath said that it was likely that the overgrowth of bacteria in my small intestine were feasting on my nutrients and I wasn't absorbing all the good stuff from my food, so this makes me think that maybe I am on top of the overgrowth situation.  My energy is amazing so maybe this is what it feels like to be running on my own iron wise?  My number now?  It's 35!  It's still pathetic and I am keen to see if it creeps up as I continue to nourish myself with primal food!

 

 

I'm not a sexy example

My Doctor said again that my blood results are 'unremarkable' and this would have been a much more exciting blog post if I had been on Statin medication and could show some amazing turn around, so my apologies.  However for me it is reassuring to know that even though the research is out there that fat doesn't cause heart disease it was nice to know that I am living proof. I explained to my Doctor why I wanted to do the tests and her eyes stood out on stalks - after all she knew I had done my research.  My Doctor said to me,

 

"There has been a shift.  We now know that it's not fat that causes heart disease, it's the carbs and sugar.  That's the death sentence.  All these people walking around stuffing their faces with cakes and pastries.  You add trans fats to that and there is your triple decker death sentence."

 

 

 

I have to say I was more than impressed with my primal aligned Doctor, I was talking to Conventional Wisdom, not my clued up Naturopath who has known this for years!  My Doctor told me to keep doing what I was doing, because it's working.  Sweet as.

 

How has eating primal affected your blood test results?  Have you got a more sexy story to share than mine?  Please share and help me spread the primal word.