A lot of people worry about the carnivore diet and cholesterol. So I thought I’d share my first lot of blood test results. I’ve been eating a carnivore diet for a bit over a year at the time of writing this, and I just had my first lot of blood work done. It was only a couple of tests at this stage, but that’s a start!
To be honest, my carnivore journey has been a little bumpy, and if you’ve not been following my journey so far, go subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out some of my other videos. While you’re in at it, why not also subscribe to my newsletter?
If you do check out some of my earlier videos, you’ll see that my journey has definitely been a bit rough. Especially over the first year due to chronic diarrhea, and histamine issues in particular. My health was pretty bad when I started on carnivore, and I was very overweight. I’m still over weight at the time of writing this, but I’m down a couple of dress sizes. And although my weight loss has been slow compared to many people, I’m definitely heading in the right direction.
Now I’ve been wanting to get some blood tests done for ages, but to be honest I couldn’t be bothered during the whole Covid nonsense with all the mask mandates etc. Having to wear a mask to get some tests done was definitely not my jam…
So I put the testing off. Then over the last few months I’ve kept putting it off again, and again, because money’s been tight. I don’t have a GP and really don’t want one. So my plan was to just get some self ordered testing done. But of course I have to pay for the tests, and they add up when you’ve got a list!
My List of Blood Tests
I’ve compiled quite a list of tests I want to have done, and I’ve had that list sitting on my desk for a while. But it was beginning to feel like I was never going to get there. So I decided this week that I’d make a start, even if it was just a small start, by getting a couple of tests done. Those that I most wanted to see were a couple of basics – lipids and average blood glucose – because that’s always the main concern when I tell people what I’m eating. Carnivore diet and cholesterol messes with the heads of many! So that was it. First thing Monday morning, I went and had a basic lipid panel, and a HbA1C done.
I figured with those two (cheap) tests, I could at least get a quick snapshot of how my cholesterol and triglycerides are going, and my average blood glucose. Hubby also had the same tests done. He’s basically eating what I discovered could be called a mesocarnivore diet, although I don’t think that’s a term generally used in humans. A mesocarnivore in the animal kingdom eats over 50% of his diet as meat, and the rest is made up from plants.
Why We Started Checking Blood Glucose
I have diabetes in my family, so this all too common modern disease IS a possibility for me if I’m not careful. In fact I think I’ve probably been pre-diabetic more than once in my life, including just prior to starting on Carnivore. But Hubby’s parents were both diabetic, so that’s why we originally bought a glucose meter, and started checking our blood glucose. That was two or three years ago.
My Father-in-law was always slim (as is my Hubby) and so he wasn’t an obvious candidate for diabetes. But he was diagnosed when he was 80 years old. From the time of his diagnosis, his blood sugar was never stabilised. It would swing wildly up and down every day, no matter how many injections the doctors had him take. He was taking a whopping 5 jabs a day at one point! He died in his early 90’s after a decade of diabetic mayhem.
So anyway, because we began checking our blood glucose regularly, I had become concerned. My glucose levels were gradually getting higher. This was over the couple of years prior to starting on a carnivore diet. And Hubby’s blood glucose wasn’t great either. In fact, when we first started monitoring our glucose, his was higher than mine much of the time. I did manage to catch up though!
So lets have a look to see if the carnivore diet and cholesterol is a problem for me.
My Carnivore Diet Blood Test Results
You’ll see my total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol are higher than a GP might want to see. Here in New Zealand they like your LDL to be lower than 2.0 mmol/L and mine is 5.0 They also like the total HDL cholesterol ratio to be under 4.0 and mine is 4.4. In fact, a zealous GP would probably be trying to prescribe me a statin about now…
and I know what my response would be…
The truth is that I’m not concerned by those numbers, and this is why. My HDL is high, and my triglycerides are low. When that’s the case, the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) is low, AND higher LDL in older people is associated with longevity as described in this article. Plus LDL numbers are an estimate. You read that right. They are not exact! They can vary from lab to lab, and in people with low triglycerides, labs can, and often do, overestimate LDL!
New Zealand Guidelines for Blood Cholesterol Levels are:
- LDL-cholesterol – less than 2.0 mmol/L
- HDL-cholesterol – greater than 1.0 mmol/L
- Triglycerides – less than 1.7 mmol/L
- Total cholesterol HDL ratio less than 4.0mmol/L
✅ To convert cholesterol numbers from mmol/L to mg/dl check out this handy calculator!
The truth is that high HDL-C and low triglycerides are beneficial, and mitigate risk of high LDL.
I grabbed a screenshot of the chart below from a video I watched with Judy Cho talking about cholesterol. It’s taken from a research paper, and shows relative risk for coronary artery disease based on LDL levels and associated HDL levels.
You’ll see in the chart above, the relative risk on the right side of CAD, and LDL levels in mg/dl along the bottom. The lower your HDL levels, the higher the risk of CAD, even with high LDL. I’ve added the red arrow to indicate my approximate risk based on this chart, and all in all I’m pretty happy with where I’m at!
I don’t have anything to compare these results with at this stage as I’ve not had any blood work done for about ten years. But looking back on my blood tests from 2011, my risk of CAD is actually quite a lot lower now, than it was then if I go by this chart. My risk at that point was up around 5 on the left side of the chart. Because even though my LDL was lower, my HDL was also lower.
That was when I was diagnosed with HyperThyroid and I was eating a mostly raw, vegan diet back then…
My Health Continues to Improve on Carnivore
I can guarantee that if I’d had these same couple of tests done a year ago, prior to starting on carnivore, they would have been much worse. In fact I know this simply because of the way my health was, and the way my body was feeling at that time. I was getting concerned about my health, and felt it was on a downhill slide. I felt like I was aging fast, and that was really worrying me! But, thankfully that’s NOT the case now.
We’ve been brainwashed into believing that cholesterol is an evil enemy, when in fact this molecule is essential to every system of the body. This is why statins cause so many serious side effects. From the reading I’ve done, and the doctors I’ve listened to, I’ve come to the conclusion that the common concerns around the carnivore diet and cholesterol are unwarranted.
More Blood Tests?
So, where to from here? Well I’m planning on repeating these tests every three months if I can to track my progress. But I’m also thinking I might have some other tests done over the next few weeks. Probably just a couple at a time as finances allow.
Honestly it’s a bit of a pain not being able to get the tests I want done in one hit. But hopefully some time soon, that might change. I don’t like to ask for help. BUT I will ask that if you’d like to help me pay for my tests, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. Once I get to 1000 subscribers I can monetise it, and that will help me.
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I really want to check my vitamin D status as that’s been consistently low in past blood tests. This was even though I was living in sunny Queensland, Australia, and I was on the beach literally every day!
I’d also like to get a thyroid panel done, just to check where that’s at. It was all good when I last had tests done ten years ago. I don’t have any real symptoms anymore so I’m picking it’s all good, but I’d like to just check.
I’d also like to have levels of basic vitamins and minerals checked. Plus a few other tests just to monitor my overall health. I have quite a list!
So remember, if you’ve not subscribed to my YouTube channel yet, please do. And also make sure you’ve subscribed to my newsletter so you’ll be notified when I post new content. I’ll be back with more test results as soon as I’m able to get more done.
If you have any questions, comments or thoughts on my results, feel free to leave a comment below
