Any Raw Foodist with High Cholestorel?

Have been a vegetarian turned vegan turned raw vegan. During my meat eating days, my total cholestoral level was a mere 150. Since I turned vegetarian to vegan to now raw vegan, my cholestoral level has gone up every year – 150, 170, 190, and now over 200+!! What on earth is happening??

Can you imagine, the health report gave me such advice ‘take at least 2 servings of fruits and veg everyday, take only lean meat, remove skin of poultry blah blah’.

Gosh, i was so embarassed with my results when my colleagues and me received our results together. All of them are serious carnivores and have lower cholestorel than me. I seriously cannot find anything wrong with my diet. I can only attribute to possible stress.

Comments

  • elizabethhelizabethh Raw Newbie

    it’s possible that you have a congenital condition which causes high cholesterol. i would see a doctor about this, as it is virtually impossible to have high cholesterol when you are eating no cholesterol unless there is a congenital aspect involved.

  • chicorychicory Raw Newbie

    personally, i don’t have high cholesterol, but my sister who has been vegan for 7 years just had blood work done, and has high cholesterol!

  • According to Douglas Graham in his book The 80/10/10 Diet, a raw vegan can have high cholesterol and even have a heart attack if they eat a high fat diet. He says a lot of raw vegans eat a higher fat diet than even the SAD if they consume too much oil, nuts, seeds, avocadoes, olives, etc., even if these things are raw. Just because it’s raw, does not mean it’s healthy to consume in an unlimited fashion – some things do need to be minimized, if consumed at all.

    I’m just reporting my understanding of what I read in his book and am trying to apply his suggestions. I have since taken out all oil from my diet and have GREATLY reduced nuts, seeds, salt and condiments and have greatly increased fruit and greens. All these changes were not easy at first, but now that I’ve been doing it for a while, I feel very, very good – good enough to keep it up! I have a doctor’s appointment in 3 weeks and am anxious to see my blood work. I had slightly high cholesterol too (204) when I had blood work done after being 100% raw vegan for 2 months and before I made these changes.

    Good luck!

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    The book Nourishing Traditions has a lot of information on cholesterol. Beware, it is not a raw vegan book at all, but it is a good reference book. Here are some things that the author, Sally Fallon, says about cholesterol:

    “Our blood vessels can become damaged in a number of ways—through irritations caused by free radicals or viruses, or because they are structurally weak—and when this happens, the body’s natural healing substance steps in to repair the damage. That substance is cholesterol. Cholesterol is a high-molecular weight alcohol that is manufactured in the liver and in most human cells. Like saturated fats, the cholesterol we make and consume plays many vital roles.”

    About high serum cholesterol levels, she says: “poor thyroid function (hypothyroidism) will often result in high cholesterol levels. When thyroid function is poor, usually due to a diet high in sugar and low in usable iodine, fat-soluble vitamins and other nutrients, the body floods the blood with cholesterol as an adaptive and protective mechanism, providing a superabundance of materials needed to heal tissues and produce protective steroids.”

    A lot of people on this forum have a low fat/no fat diet, so there is obviously a difference in opinion. I don’t really know what the answer is, but I think that the fact that a person who consumes virtually no cholesterol has high serum cholesterol levels is worth researching.

    Good luck, I hope you find out what it is that ails you :)

  • Bananna1333Bananna1333 Raw Newbie

    hmmm, I thought you could only get cholesterol from animal sources, or manufactured from our own bodies!

    ....ya I just checked with wikipedia…I would talk to your doctor about that. Cuz I’m right…you shouldn’t have cholesterol problems, you aren’t getting anything substantial dietary wise, which means you’re making too much of it.

    Check out the wikipedia cholesterol page.

  • jellibijellibi Raw Newbie

    Yep bananna, I think that’s right.

  • Here in peru people with high cholesterol drink the pineapple skin and core lightly boiled in water to reduce it. I know its not raw, but you wouldn’t be eating the skins anyway and you also get the extra nutrition from the skin. (I would just try and use organic skin). Drinking about 3 glasses a day should lower cholesterol in about 2 weeks.Although it does sound like the problem might be coming from a deficiency or as Jellibi quoted, low thyroid function. You could try reducing fruit/sugar intake and increasing leafy greens and kelp (any sea-product has lots of iodine).

  • chicorychicory Raw Newbie

    i thought that the fats from avocados, nuts, flax, seeds etc, were healthy fats that actually lowered cholesterol?

  • Has your HDL (good cholesterol) increased? What is your ratio? This can be even more important than total cholesterol.

    To learn more, visit: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?id…

  • Paxton SquiggledyPaxton Squiggledy Raw Newbie

    Maybe you should get your liver checked. They do some kind of blood test for that (liver), but I’m not sure what exactly it is checking.

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