Understanding Your Cholesterol

So you can't just go by the cholesterol test that your doctor does. Right.

Right.

So you need something called what?

Like particle size testing. It's telling us about those things that are carrying around your cholesterol.

Yes, LabCorp does NMR.

Yep, NMR.

Quest does something called Cardio IQ, which is similar. And you can ask your doctor for these and you shouldn't stand for any other test but these tests. And then they tell you so much. So tell us how do you get a profile that is with these small, dense, dangerous HDL and LDL?

Well, you know, it's interesting. So there's a lot of lifestyle that impacts the size of your LDL particles, right? The size of those, you know, are they small and dense and dangerous or are they big and fluffy and not so dangerous? I mean, there's always a genetic component, right? There's a genetic component, but then there's our lifestyle. And we know that that, that metabolic syndrome where people are insulin resistant, gaining weight around the belly, they typically have lower HDL, they typically have higher triglycerides, but they also typically have more of these small dense LDLs which are more concerning. And so lifestyle makes a huge impact on the size of those LDL particles.

And which part of your lifestyle? What's the biggest thing?

The diet.

Your diet. What diet causes you to have the dangerous kind of cholesterol?

That's a sad diet. The standard American diet, right? That's the one that, you know, that full of carbohydrates and sugar and refined and processed foods and lots of alcohol and, you know, it's the sugar that drives it.

And what does that do to the body that causes these particles? And it actually leads to the high triglycerides, the low HDL, the small particles.

Right. It's that whole process of insulin resistance.