Saturday, May 16, 2009

Australian researchers still fret over LDL.

This report comes from the 17th Obesity conference in Amsterdam.  It worries that a long-term low-carbohydrate diet increases LDL cholesterol, in spite of quite a hike in HDL!  I thought it was already well known that saturated fat increases both so what's the big surprise here?  I don't have the source of the paper, and they don't mention particle size or VLDL measurements.

The presenter, Dr. Clifton, seems very concerned about the modest rise in LDL, but silent on the substantial rise in HDL, which I thought is known to be a much better marker for low CVD risk. Further, he attributes this rise not to the diet, but to the modest weight loss in the study group!

It's hard to tell what's really going on based solely on the news report.  One thing I will have to check on is "flow-mediated dilation" (FMD) which is a measure the researchers seem concerned with.