• Home
  • The Diet
  • Recipes
  • Resources
  The Plant Experience

Todd's Plant based Journey

More information on HDL

6/3/2011

0 Comments

 
One of the concerns when I first started a plant based diet was my HDL level.  HDL is the "good" cholesterol and the thinking has always been the higher your HDL, the lower the risk for heart disease.  My HDL number prior to starting a plant based diet was 34 which isn't too bad.  After only 3 weeks of being on the diet, my HDL number dropped to 23.  At first I was very disappointed because although my other numbers were great, my HDL was lower than my doctor wanted.

After being on the diet for awhile, I ran into an article found at Medical News Today which talked a little more about what HDL really means.  It turns out that the HDL number itself is not as important as the efflux capacity of the HDL.  The article states, "Efflux capacity is a measure of how well HDL removes cholesterol from cholesterol-loaded macrophages, a type of white blood cell, that accumulate in arterial plaque."  So even though you may have a high HDL number, that number does not necessarily mean your HDL is good at removing cholesterol.  So a high HDL number with a low efflux capacity may be bad and yet a low HDL number with a high efflux capacity looks to be good.  This information helped calm my fears with my low HDL number.

Then today, I ran into another article written by Dr. Dean Ornish talking about HDL.  The article makes the analogy of HDL being like little garbage trucks taking away the bad cholesterol.  He mentions that for people on a plant based diet, a low HDL number is more likely to mean that because of the low amount of bad cholesterol in the blood, the body does not need to make as many little garbage trucks (HDL) to take away the bad cholesterol......because the bad cholesterol is at such a low level.  The research supports this in those eating a plant based diet.  So eat plant strong and don't worry about HDL....that's my take away!!

0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Get blog updates via email. Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    About the Author

    Hello, my name is Todd Coston.  This site is a dedicated to my journey on a plant based diet.  I'm passionate about the benefits of this diet and share my thoughts, resources and recipes through this site.  I would love to hear from you, so drop me a line at [email protected].


    Other Plant Based Blogs/Sites:
    Happy Healthy Long Life
    Healthy Girl's Kitchen
    Choosing Raw
    Happy Herbivore
    Engine2 Diet

    Other:
    Rocky Road Run
    Volkslauf 2012

    Categories

    All
    Chipotle
    Clinton
    Cnn
    Grain
    Hdl
    Milk
    Novick
    Oil
    Potato
    Recipe
    Recipes
    Salad
    Salad Dressing
    Seitan
    Snacks
    Soup
    Success Story
    Thanksgiving
    Video

    Archives

    November 2013
    October 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    May 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • The Diet
  • Recipes
  • Resources