More information on HDL

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!!