Fasting Lipids

When going to get my lipid panel bloodwork, do you recommend that patients need to do this fasting or is it okay to eat before? My PCP stresses that I need to be fasting for about 8-12 hours for the bloodwork to be the most accurate.

Certain parameters (mainly triglycerides) can be impacted by recent food intake, but this impact is typically not so significant that it alters treatment recommendations. As a result, more recent guidelines put far less emphasis on fasting prior to lipid panels, and many clinicians don’t worry about it anymore. If do you choose to fast, 8 hours is plenty, 12 hours is really overkill.

I see, thanks for the reply Austin!!