Keto Diet. I would appriciate some advice. I am on 3 different blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds and blood thinning. I recently was advised that my blood sugar was starting to get high and my blood pressure was also steadily starting to rise.
I have started on a Keto diet and so far my blood pressure is going down each day and is now 120/80. I don't feel hungry and I am steadily loosing weight. I am regularly walking. My main concern is the cholesterol side of things as I am not testing if it has risen. I would like to remain on the diet as it seems to be sustainable for me.
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parrish
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I just wanted to welcome you to the Healthy eating forum, and I hope you'll enjoy participating. I can see you've had lots of great replies and information, and I hope you find it helpful. Wishing you a great weekend.
The keto diet is unlikely to reduce cholesterol, in fact, assuming this is meat based keto then your cholesterol may be more likely to rise. If your triglycerides are high as well then keto may not be a good idea long term.
I put myself in front of enough flames as it is! over recent months I have been having a detailed spat on "science" based medicine website who insist that my recovery from arthritis was spontaneous, mostly because their minds are a closed book. It is hard when you (well me) face off against a barrage of people who come at you with a stream of poor arguments. I never do this to win a popularity contest. My hope in putting myself out there is to find
a) the common ground (which includes reducing refined foods to an absolute minimum.)
b) understanding the strengths and weaknesses of LCHF vs HCLF for the benefit of all.
c) clarification of definitions. For example someone following a keto diet may not actually be in ketosis since that is a high bar to maintain.
Putting myself in front of the LCHF forum right now would be too much for my brain. I have followed the forum but since its members are generally hard core LCHF I I think they are unlikely to welcome my arguments any more than a can of petrol to a match.
This forum of course is, at least in theory, open to healthy eating debates.
If your arthritis was auto-immune, there's a strong theory that autoimmune disease stems from a leaky gut. The immune system first has to battle food particles in the blood, but soon after, it gets confused and thinks that other bodily proteins are a bit too similar to the offending food proteins, and so it attacks those too.
The theory in the functional medicine world is that withdrawing the trigger, should prevent the attack, and allow the body & gut to heal.
It's a wall many of us with other autoimmune diseases come up against too: doctors don't think it's possible to reverse the symptoms of autoimmune disease with food choices (except coeliac disease). They just say to go away and put up with it, because there isn't a pill you can be prescribed. I think doctors are gradually adapting to this way of thinking though.
For me, it looks like my trigger might be dairy. Dairy is a very common one, after gluten.
Nightshades are a group of vegetables, they include white potatoes, aubergines, peppers (incl. chilli peppers), courgettes and tomatoes, among other things. If you google them, it'll show you the full list.
They are believed to be inflammatory plants, so if you're trying to cut down inflammation in the body (e.g. during cancer treatment), then they suggest avoiding them. On a list of trigger foods, they're quite low down the list (maybe 5% of people with autoimmune disease struggle with them, compared to about 80% who struggle with gluten).
Nightshade plants infamously include the most famous nightshade of them all Atropa belladonna, woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiti... and of course no normal human being wants to eat that plant! More importantly tomatoes and potatoes are included. Also included are other vegetables/fruit including gooseberries, rhubarb. Also common spices include paprika, cayenne etc.
What they all have in common is a chemical called solanine which is a mild natural toxin that causes nausea and other intestinal upsets. The plant family name is solanaceae. Rather than an all or nothing what seems important for most people is the quantities injested. Tomatoes have relatively high levels. Potatoes can be high as well but most of it is near the skin, so well peeled potatoes tend to have small quantities.
My keto experience has been that my triglycerides went way down and my cholesterol stayed the same. It's high--it was always high.
Anyway, good or bad, keto hasn't changed it. The pattern (large fluffy vs small dense) is good now, but unfortunately I don't know what it was before because I never had it tested.
My blood sugar went way down (from prediabetic to almost below normal) as did my insulin. I've lost about 60 lbs and kept it off for ten years.
BTW I would say I use mostly olive oil, avocado oil second, and butter last. But I use plenty of full cream and eat plenty of eggs and high fat cheese.
Thanks for all the replys. I haven't read anything that has put me off the low carb high fat thing. I intend to not make it hard work for myself as to sustain it as a Life style change I think it needs to be simple. I intend to get my cholesterol checked when I get back to the UK but that won't be for a couple of months. I still feel like it's a bit of an experiment but I am going to give it a longer try.
Keep going and good luck! It’s definitely worth trying.
My husbands cholesterol levels (and mine) are fine on low carb.
I have had high cholesterol for well over 20 years..but all the doctors I've seen don't seem to be worried about it. and I have never been worried about it.
when my doctor told me I had high cholesterol and prescribed satins but at the same time said he wasn't worried about it... on my return home I ask questions about it to two of my neighbour's who are both doctors/proffers in medicine and both said to take the satins regularly... I didn't believe i needed them and thought of the doctors were just following guidelines.
my brother inlaw had been on satins for years and thought me crazy for not taking them..
he died two years later from a heart attack...end off.
personally I believe what you say is a 100% ture. so thanks for taking the time to reply.
I've done the same as you, and I'm similar meds. I've been keto for about 18 months. Everything has improved, blood make-up, blood pressure, weight, leaner, fitter, more alert (mind you, that wasn't hard 😁). After 6 months my cholesterol had stayed the same at less than 4 overall figure, but good cholesterol had improved. At a year it had gone up to low 5's. I've read it can be temporary and unless you're overeating, of eating far too much meat etc, it should come down again as your system gets used to the changes.
Due another test in a few months, so that'll be interesting. I'm not worried with cholesterol at around 5 though. I'm a 70 year old male.
I think the cholesterol theory understands VLDL and does not ignore it. Models need refining over time. For example heart attacks being caused by blood clots is not quite right. Most attacks do not occur until the artery is over 90% blocked. This is because the body finds alternative, smaller, routes to guarantee blood supply. It does this incredibly successfully. Something needs to happen to the plaque to trigger the attack. I forget the next stage off the top of my head. But of course the consequences for the person are awful because the chronic illness has been building in the body for many years, if not decades until we reach a "straw and the camels back" moment.
parrish, just remember that the liver makes cholesterol if we don't consume enough, so isn't it odd that doctors try to lower it?
Also, how did they come up with the levels for cholesterol? How do we know that what they consider to be high cholesterol isn't in fact normal?
I have a female friend who's 71 (looks 50), not a thing wrong with her. Latest check-up her doctor (NHS) tells her she has a (wait for it) 12% chance of having a heart attack and (wait for it) would she like to go on statins. She politely declined, although she couldn't hide the "Are you crazy??" expression. I would have asked the doc how she came up with 12%. And if there was a 12% chance she was crazy.
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