Hey all, got an inquiry involving cholesterol. My buddy and I are both attempting to eat an increased amount of animal proteins (and have been doing so now for roughly 4 months) to induce some hypertrophy (obviously). However, we both recently got blood work and our cholesterol was slightly elevated. Mine is 230 and his is 220. Before changing our diets, our cholesterol was around 185. I know in the podcasts Jordan and Austin always talks about how dietary cholesterol only plays a minor role in serum cholesterol, but it’s odd that both my and his cholesterol went up like this. I’m not sure of all of my buddy’s lipid levels, but here are mine (the numbers in the left column are mine and the numbers in the right are the normal range):
| CHOLESTEROL | 231 mg/dL | 120 - 200 mg/dL |
|---|---|---|
| TRIGLYCERIDE | 128 mg/dL | <150 mg/dL |
| HDL CHOLESTEROL | 46 mg/dL | >=40 mg/dL |
| CHOL/HDL | 5.0 | |
| NON-HDL CHOLESTEROL | 185 mg/dL | mg/dL |
| LDL CHOLESTEROL | 159 mg/dL | mg/dL |
| CHOL/HDL INTERPRETATION | Average Risk |
Our diet change basically involved;
a. eating a meal of red meat (mostly ground beef b/c it’s affordable) almost every day - this protein source used to be chicken or poultry
b. eating 4-6 whole eggs every day (and yes I have heard all the podcasts and read some primary sources about how eating whole eggs shouldn’t raise your cholesterol).
c. probably eating more overall calories - though we are not counting cals
Other than that our diet has stayed the same, we both supplement with whey and try to eat meals with protein for every meal.
My question is specifically, what could have caused the increase in cholesterol levels if not diet? The internet is rife with (probably fallacious) dietary solutions to lowering cholesterol, but how could we lower ours with non-dietary/ pharm intervention? Also, does saturated fat dietary intake contribute significantly to serum cholesterol?
Thanks!