cholesterol and traditional foods (truth?)

[sbgrace]

My son is three. His fasting cholesterol was 248. His cholesterol was high at 18ish months too I know.

His dietary fat is primarily from coconut oil and avocado. I occasionally use butter (ghee) but mostly it is one of those two types. He does take cod liver oil.

I don't know what to think. Traditionally, I would be advised to cut the coconut oil. I want to believe that isn't it...but his cholesterol is high and i don't want to hurt him. What is the truth here? What would you do?

[mamaMAMAma]

: DH has high cholesterol as well and was given the 2-3 meat meals a week and more soy!!! And now, we're definitely not going to have anything to do with soy.

[quietserena]

I'm rather curious, why were you checking the cholesterol levels in your DS? Children need dietary cholesterol to build their growing brains, right?

Mine has dropped since I started TF. But I have to admit, my diet before TF wasn't all that balanced and I find that if I go really carby and go overboard on grains I feel my body go out of control. I have insulin hangovers and I feel sluggish. From my research, high insulin levels correspond with high cholesterol levels and my diet before TF was very high in easily absorbed carbs like grains and potatoes.

[sbgrace]

Well, my son we are just finding out has a metabolic disease so the cholesterol was run with, I imagine, other tests related to trying to track down which disease he has.

Unfortunately, it looks like whatever disease he does have has to do with fat metabolism. This is completely unrelated to the cholestorol (has to do with carnitine actually) but it does mean I am nearly positive they are going to prescribe a high carb, low fat diet for him. (we've been lower carbs and still aren't carb heavy but I know we're going to go there when all the biopsy tests are run--till then I've been told not to change).

My mom has high cholesterol as do a zillion people in her family. This is no doubt inherited.
I just don't know if I should be cutting saturated fat or if that really is a myth.

[famousmockngbrd]

subbing - nothing to add. Interesting, though.

[EMS]

From personal experience, I have found that a TF diet raised my cholesterol. Before I started, I ate a pretty healthy, primarily veg, low-fat, carb-heavy diet. My cholesterol was an already high 220. After 6 months eating TF (whole raw milk, meat 3-4 times a week, eggs daily, etc.), it was 260. (Both HDL and LDL were high.)
I've since cut way back on meat and eggs, and somewhat on dairy, so I'll be interested to see how this affects the numbers. High cholesterol does run in my family.
I know die-hards will say the cholesterol number doesn't matter, but it's one thing to say that when your numbers are "good," another to stick by it when they're at a "dangerous" level. I'm not willing to take that risk.
In any case, many traditional diets did not contain large amounts of animal products--it's just that they all have them in at least some form.
As for kids, however, I think it's different. Kids need cholesterol for their developing brains. Even the AAP, which toes the party line of the FDA, refused to follow their recommendation to suggest that kids under 2 drink lowfat milk rather than whole. How this might play into a metabolic disorder, though, I have no idea.

[quietserena]

The thread on the Zone reminded me. The two places I found references on dietary cholesterol not raising blood cholesterol levels was in the books on the Zone and the one called Protein Power.

I'm sorry that you're having to go through all the tests and your DS too. Metabolic issues are so hard because they aren't very well understood.

[tamagotchi]

Originally Posted by EMS

From personal experience, I have found that a TF diet raised my cholesterol. Before I started, I ate a pretty healthy, primarily veg, low-fat, carb-heavy diet. My cholesterol was an already high 220. After 6 months eating TF (whole raw milk, meat 3-4 times a week, eggs daily, etc.), it was 260. (Both HDL and LDL were high.)

My DH had the same experience, I think it went up to 290 at the peak. Since we needed to get new life insurance for him at that time, we made an effort to bring it down.

Instead of worrying about the animal products, we focused on increasing his consumption of nuts and seeds (walnuts and almond butter in our case), high fiber grains (in breakfast cereals and muffins), greens and other vegetables. The numbers came down very fast!

My personal theory is that it's easy for some people (like my DH) to interpret TF principles as "eat tons of fat and meat" (lots of people interpret Atkins this way as well) which can lead to a diet that is not really balanced. I don't know if the high cholesterol numbers are an actual health concern or not... there's a lot of controversy about that. However, I do believe that it's healthier to achieve a balance between animal and plant foods. There's some discussion in the Garden of Eating book speculating on the proportions of animal and plant foods in ancient diets, which I found helpful.

[pampered_mom]

Originally Posted by sbgrace

My son is three. His fasting cholesterol was 248. His cholesterol was high at 18ish months too I know.

I'm assuming your referring to total cholesterol here, correct? What about the ratio between HDL/LDL. There are folks have have "high" total cholesterol, but the majority of that is made of up HDL.

I would suggest this site: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/index.html
and the book by Uffe Ravnskov called "The Cholesterol Myths".

[elelvee]

I second Pampered Mom, and I recommend Dr. Cowan's "Ask the Doctor" column on high cholesterol.
Read it on either the WAPF website or www.fourfoldhealing.com.

www.fourfoldhealing.com/Ask%20the%20Doctor.htm for the column.
http://www.fourfoldhealing.com/Q&A%2...holesterol.htm for the cholesterol page

[sbgrace]

Thank you all for your input. I'll take in all the links and experiences you shared with me.
Yes, his number was total cholestorol and I'm not sure they broke it down as that was not the reason for the testing anyway.
I gotta admit I'm wondering if the saturated fat (coconut oil) isn't the way to go for him. Shoot this is hard for me. I hate the thought of his arteries already being damaged. (He is extremely thin so this is all diet and heredity with him).

[pampered_mom]

mama - it's somewhat easier to make these kinds of decisions for yourself but sometimes infintely more difficult when you're making the decision for your child.

FWIW...my mom has been struggling with this decision a little bit herself. She has high cholesterol, but it's very much hereditary. Her mom has it, her sister has it, etc. She can only keep it "under control" when she eats a crazy diet that is not sustainable in the long-term. She recently went off statins b/c she wasn't real keen on the side effects and she had just started to get into TF. I think to a certain degree she still struggles with her decision.

I know for her, Uffe's book was incredibly helpful b/c he really does breakdown the cholesterol issue by going back to the original studies. I certainly suggest taking your time while reading his book and taking lots of notes.

I don't what role your ds' own metabolic disorder will play in the whole issue here. I'd suggest trying to do some more research...asking Chris Masterjohn (the author of the website) or even going to a little bit broader TF group like the NativeNutrition Yahoo Group.

[westcoastmom]

Do you give your son butter oil? Does he eat lacto fermented foods? Vitamin K2 is important for cardiovascular health. Vitamin K2 supports calcium channels in the body and keeps calcium deposits from building up in arteries. Does your son have gut problems? (Are the stools good?)