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Cholesterol levels poll: pls answer even if they're normal!

What are your cholesterol levels usually, since you've gotten sick?

  • Very low -- less than 130 mg/dL (3.3618 mmol/L)

  • Clinically low -- 131 -- 160mg/dL (3.4 -- 4.1 mmol/L)

  • A bit lower than average -- 161 -- 179mg/dL (4.2 -- 4.6 mmol/L)

  • Normal or close enough -- 180 -- 200mg/dL (4.65 -- 5.17 mmol / L)

  • A bit higher than average -- 201 -- 220mg/dL (5.2 -- 5.69 mmol / L)

  • Clinically high -- 221 -- 250mg/dL (5.7 -- 6.47 mmol / L)

  • Very high -- higher than 250-mg/dL (6.5 or higher mmol / L)


Results are only viewable after voting.

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
Hey, all. Recently, I uncovered a mutation in my cholesterol-making apparatus, which makes sense as my cholesterol is quite low.

I know I've seen others here on PR who are the same as me, with low cholesterol. At the same time, I've seen a lot of other patients with their cholesterol quite high. I'm wondering what the ratios really are, patient-wise. Please encourage others to take this poll, so we minimize selection bias as much as is possible with a thread title like this!

Please go by your recent measurements in the poll, but please also comment below: has your cholesterol been increasing as you've gotten sicker? Has it been declining? Is it high / low and always has been, even before illness? Answers like this help us make sense of the data.
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
10 minutes and four votes already! Thank you to everyone who's responded so far!

I should add that despite my (heterozygous) mutation, my cholesterol was always dead normal (188 or so, as I recall, before illness). Then it has steadily declined until the current value is in the 140s. About to get a reading, it's been at least 9 months since I got a reading last.
 

me/cfs 27931

Guest
Messages
1,294
Kaiser Permanente says the standard cholesterol range is <=239 mg/dL. I'm borderline clinically high in your survey, but normal according to Kaiser Permanente.

I know Kaiser Permanente used to have a much lower normal range in the past.

Edit: My cholesterol has been pretty steady the past 10 years.
 
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CFS_for_19_years

Hoarder of biscuits
Messages
2,396
Location
USA
Kaiser Permanente says the standard cholesterol range is <=239 mg/dL. I'm borderline clinically high in your survey, but normal according to Kaiser Permanente.

I know Kaiser Permanente used to have a much lower normal range in the past.
My large HMO has this as its reference range: 100 - 199 mg/dL.

I only have data going back to 2002 and I've been sick since 1990. Since 2002 my cholesterol values have gone up and down, then up again.

Some medications can raise cholesterol levels.
 
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JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
Kaiser Permanente says the standard cholesterol range is <=239 mg/dL. I'm borderline clinically high in your survey, but normal according to Kaiser Permanente.

Does depend on who you ask / what source you use. Since 200 is 'average', I do stand by the idea that a bit above that is 'a bit above average' ;) However, I would like to have the label altered so that it doesn't say 'clinically high!'. Unfortunately it appears you can't change the poll choices after they've been chosen, which makes sense. Mea culpa for that mistake!
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
My large HMO has this as its reference range: 100 - 199 mg/dL

Yes, ditto (for the upper end of that range) but I do see higher being listed as 'normal' or 'slightly above average', as @Webdog mentions.

For the lower end, 100 would be extraordinarily abnormal... a cause of serious concern. Western medicine really needs to get out of the high-bad, low-good false dichotomy! Cholesterol is an important chemical for cell membrane integrity, brain function, and hormone production, it can't be half of the average and still be within range. I hope clinicians aren't blindly checking that off.

Different articles on pubmed may define hypocholesterolemia a little differently, but 'below normal' is assessed at "less than 160" in a few places and "less than 150" in a few others.

(2008) Hypocholesterolemia in clinically serious conditions--review.
 
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Thinktank

Senior Member
Messages
1,640
Location
Europe
I've tested my cholesterol 20 times or so during the past 4 years.

Last measurement:
Cholesterol: 185
Triglycerides: 47
HDL: 46 (low)
LDL: 133 (high)

My averagess
Cholesterol average 180 ~ 230
HDL has always been low averaging 40 ~ 45
LDL has always been high averaging 120 ~ 150

This despite eating a very clean diet!
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
Highest when first tested 9 years ago with a PAD diagnosis (and 3-400 meter pain-free walking distance only) at 264. Since then and cleaning up my diet (no sugar, omega-6 fats, reduction of carbs, and increasing healthy fats to about 70% of calorie intake) it has been pretty consistently at about 190 in average since then. With only one outlier at 235 - interestingly exactly when my intermittent claudication ceased about 2 years ago.
 
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Wonko

Senior Member
Messages
1,467
Location
The other side.
Over the last 12 years my Cholesterol has risen from 3.2mmol/L to 5.3mmol/L (at last test 3 months ago). This is despite stopping smoking, removing most unhealthy things from my diet (e.g most of my food is now unprocessed, fresh, home cooked etc.), and, in the last 6 months, finally taking the statin insisted on by my Doctor (which she tried to get me to take when my levels were 3.2mmol/L).

My conclusion, for me, a clean lifestyle + statins + M.E. increases Cholesterol.
 

Mij

Messages
2,353
Both my HDL and LDL have increased since eating coconut oil My ratio is normal My Triglycerides are low.
 

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,930
CFS since 1987, with an aggravation in 2002 and a second aggravation in 2015.

my Cholesterol was 170 mg/dl in 2003, and lowered regularly to 152 in 2013

then 167 in 2016

I try to eat good amounts of fat daily.

Maybe it would be interesting to know the LDL and HDL cholesterol for people under 160?
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
My conclusion, for me, a clean lifestyle + statins + M.E. increases Cholesterol.

Except the statins - which I refused after finding it has a NNT (number needed to tread) of 83 patients who take the drug, to reduce increased 5-year mortality of just 1 patient - in my case decreased cholesterol substantially.

Cholesterol can go high for many reasons, infections raise its need. A healing NAFDL could bring numbers up:
https://chriskresser.com/chris-masterjohn-on-cholesterol-and-heart-disease-part-3/
 

drob31

Senior Member
Messages
1,487
Hey, all. Recently, I uncovered a mutation in my cholesterol-making apparatus, which makes sense as my cholesterol is quite low.

I know I've seen others here on PR who are the same as me, with low cholesterol. At the same time, I've seen a lot of other patients with their cholesterol quite high. I'm wondering what the ratios really are, patient-wise. Please encourage others to take this poll, so we minimize selection bias as much as is possible with a thread title like this!

Please go by your recent measurements in the poll, but please also comment below: has your cholesterol been increasing as you've gotten sicker? Has it been declining? Is it high / low and always has been, even before illness? Answers like this help us make sense of the data.


I'm 119 Total. Is that low?

Do you think this would make pregnenolone lower, and thus adrenal hormones lower, low cortisol, etc?



Cholesterol, Total

119
NORMAL




Reference Range: 100-199 mg/dL
Triglycerides

47
NORMAL




Reference Range: 0-149 mg/dL
HDL Cholesterol

56
NORMAL




Reference Range: >39 mg/dL
VLDL Cholesterol Cal

9
NORMAL




Reference Range: 5-40 mg/dL
LDL Cholesterol Calc

54
NORMAL
Reference Range:0-99 mg/dL
 

stridor

Senior Member
Messages
873
Location
Powassan, Ontario
I was higher than average until the mercury fillings came out and then it dropped into normal. I was on a low fat diet when told that my cholesterol was high in 1995. I am now on a very high fat diet and most of it saturated from coconut. It is my contention that the liver produces cholesterol to protect the vessels from oxidative and mechanical damage. Mercury doesn't play nice with any cell and the intima layer of the arterioles is fair game.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Cholesterol alone does not tell the whole lipid story, for instance the cholesterol:HDL ratio and triglycerides can be elevated despite an in range cholesterol level.

I did not answer the poll