In Part I, we focused on the three day gap where I arranged a massive shift around the first public presentation of my data. There’s quite a bit more to the story, though, which we’ll dig into here…
Knowing I’d be presenting on October 9th made it immediately clear I needed to test on the Friday before (7th) and the Monday following (10th). This should reflect the shift in LDL-C and HDL-C, given they both follow that three day window immediately before a blood test.
But what about LDL-P, and for that matter, small LDL-P (smLDL-P)? Since these follow a three day window, but with a two day gap in between, I needed to be sure I captured all five days before Oct 7th and the five days following. So in short, I’d be on the “low calorie diet” on October 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th until the morning of the 7th (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). I’d then take the blood test and ramp up the food intake to a “high calorie diet” for the rest of the 7th, then the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) up to the morning of the 12th.
Below, in each graph, I mark the blood test associated with these four tests over the ten days in red, which will always be at the right of the graph.
So let’s start by looking at our old friend, LDL-C.
For those of you who regularly read my blog, this is a familiar graph. In this case the blue solid line represents the LDL cholesterol that resulted from the blood test. The dashed orange line represents the dietary fat I ate in the three days just before the blood test was taken.
At the far right end you’ll see a solid red line replacing the blue. Those four data points took place October 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th. You can also see the dashed orange lines showing my extreme low, followed by the extreme high in dietary fat.
Let’s invert the axis on the left side of the graph (the Three Day Dietary Fat) so that we can compare these trends visually.
Sure enough — I “broke” my own correlation given how quickly I shifted from one extreme to the other. Given our correlation on the left side of the graph, you’d expect my extreme low on dietary fat of 63g would theoretically push my LDL-C up to around 348.
However, I did manage to bring the LDL-C down to 155 which did match the expected position relative to the diet. Yet this completed on the 12th, not the 10th. Again, this was probably due to the degree of shift, but we’d need to do more testing to know.
How about LDL-P?
Same thing. Purple is pre-conference, red on the right is during. Let’s invert again…
Like LDL-C above, the massive shifts seem to surpass my metabolism’s attempt to catch up.
Now let’s look at HDL-C.
As you can see from the green line on the right side, we have a long established coupling in the positive between dietary fat and HDL-C. But this too is broken by the experiment as shown on the right.
Other Interesting Markers
I had a number of things change, but there are two specific ones I wanted to call attention to in this post.
Glucose vs Insulin
Now I don’t want to blow your mind too much, so prepare yourself… here comes fasting glucose vs insulin…
Whoa — really?!? As my fasting glucose went up, so too did my insulin? No way!
Okay, kidding aside, it’s difficult to tease out the impact of each macronutrient on my fasting glucose to see what the primary drivers of the increased insulin were. Since all of my macros went up, this could’ve been from higher carbs or protein — or possibly just overall caloric load.
What is interesting is that even after 5 days at 5000 calories, my peak insulin was still at the bottom third of the reference range, at 8.3. Incredible!
Calories vs Weight
Easily one of the most hotly debated subjects in low carb communities. I’m firmly in the camp that says Hormone Balance Matters Most, But Calories Are Still Energy. Is that a side? If so, should we start a website for hbmmbcase.com?
I’m 6’3″ (190.5 cm) and thus feel a bit underweight at my running average of around 176 lbs (79.8 kg). My typical average calories right now are around 3,100. So what happens when I drop it to 750-ish for five days, then ramp up to 5,000+ for five days?
I’m missing 10/2 and 10/3 due to not being around a scale (was on a camping trip), but presumably I had a similar trend as 10/4-7 given I hover around 176 lbs as mentioned above.
Clearly the massive drop, then rise, in calories had a very acute effect on my weight. Over this span of time, I was careful to keep my water intake roughly the same for both low and high periods, although my non-water beverages were a little higher on the last half.
Final Thoughts
I’m now at the point of being so sure about the dynamism of the lipid system that this is becoming almost comical. Getting to this point took a lot of money, time, and blood (literally). I was fortunate to have this experiment wrapped into my first presentation. Doing the demonstration was a no-brainer. Why only show the data if you can display its predictive power as well?
There’s actually a lot more data I couldn’t get to due to the balancing act I’m now performing between this, contract work, interviews, and helping others to gather N=1 data as well (upcoming).
Personally, I wish I could work on this research 100% of the time, but I do have to pay the bills…
Leave a Reply
38 Comments on "Dropping My Cholesterol at Record Speeds – Part II"
Dave,
Nice work! I suggest quitting your day job and staring a “go fund me” or “kickstarter” campaign! I will make the first contribution. 🙂
In all seriousness we apoe4/hyperresponders need answers – is high LDL -P and small LDL-p harmful in the context of LCHF/Keto with low inflammation and low FBG and low insulin??
Interesting — I haven’t yet done fasting so as to do it in isolation for my testing. It will likely be its own experiment.
I’ve read in many places that Lp(a) is often genetically determined and is thus hard to move. What is your score currently? Also, do you know what it was before your heart event?
Dave,
Your presentation in LV was superb. I agree with Richard, the research is so interesting that there might be no harm in you opening a campaign to test out a market for community-funded research. I can think of a number of different approaches to monetise the research, testing, results, software, education materials….
Cheers
Andy
Thank you, Andy!
I’ll likely have something up soon.
You should start logging by at least the 5 days before your first blood test, given the LDLp Inversion pattern appears to work that far backwards.
Hi Dave,
Just got around to replying. I completed the tests and am just trying to figure out how best to put them together. Any suggestions on the best way to share?
Thanks!
Kevin
I’ll email you directly at the address you gave when registering with this site for comments. However, I may not be able to get to it until next week as I’m a bit swamped at the moment.
Hi Ferro.
Go ahead and outline what you have in mind. Are you going to do the same experiment as this post?
I’ve just finished a draft of the page will be posting up shortly that gives a detailed guide on doing the experiment. I’m just going to have it proofed first…
(And congrats! You were that final push that got me inspired to formalize it. :D)
Perfect. I’ll wait until the guide is ready. And thank you for doing all the hard work.
Great info! Question: As someone that has some very good markers (HDL 90, Trigs 70) but very bad LDL-P #’s, I’m curious: did your LDL-P/particle size #’s return to their pre-experiment levels? i.e. how long does the drastic improvement in particle size and count last? It is acting in some way as a “Reset button” or do the numbers quickly return to their pre-5000 calorie LCHF diet levels?
Thanks for all you’re doing,
Seth
I assume they quickly return — or rather, as “quickly” as I got them there given the 3 and 5 day patterns with LDLc and LDLp, respectively.
HI Dave
Thanks so much. Did you investigate triglycerides?
The longer I follow LCHF, the higher my LDL and TG.
Both are now off the charts high. My GP (LCHF advocate) is completely bamboozled.
Cheers
Ian A
Hi Pheobe-
– I’m an ApoE3/4, but do not have higher TG.
– Just for context: by “healthy Cholesterol Metabolism” — do you mean lower LDLc/p, lower TG, or both?
Dave,
Fascinating work. I am a bit confused however, what is your scientific reasoning for using the “2 day gap 3 day Look backr” as an accurate measure for LDL-P? Why not just last 5 days? Why is a diet, 2 days before the test not move the needle in LDL-P?
Hi Michael-
Not a scientific reasoning, just the strongest emerging correlation I’m getting with the bloodwork. I was originally trying to apply the same 3 day average to LDL-P as I have with LDL-C but it was showing a consistent delay of two days as shown in the weeklong, day-after-day blood testing. Once adjusted to include the gap, the Pearson showed the strongest correlation with that formula (currently -0.83).
Thanks Dave,
I have taken around a dozen NMR tests over the last 3 years. Here is how my Pearson correlation looks like for LDL-P using your 2 day gap 3 day look back. I am APOE4/3.
% Carbs: .01
% Fat : -.37
% Protein: .55
Sat Fat: .13
Pol Fat: -.11
Mono Fat: -.53
Total Carbs: .04
Total Fat: -.27
Total Protein: .47
Cholesterol: .53
It looks like Mono is good, Animal protein (cholesterol) bad. Pretty much on point of what Dr. Gundry has suggested would happen. Have you ever tried using the sdLDL tests?
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
I’m not sure I follow… I think you’re saying:
You applied Pearson along all NMR data sets along with your record of food… but if so, it makes the % and fat line items a bit more confusing. Could you clarify a bit more?
Correct.
% fat has a negative correlation to LDL-P. However if you break down the fat more granular, it’s the Mono Fat that really moves the needle.
The % for Fat, Carbs and Protein is simply a percentage taken over the 3 days. (All add up to 100% per day). It’s probably not the most accurate number to look at. Overall Protein, Cholesterol and Mono Fat seem to influence my LDL-P the most.