Anyone Know Much About Low Cholesterol?

[starrytrekchic]

I was at the hospital for an unrelated thing several months ago and they were having a cholesterol screening. I tested at 135 total cholesterol, which I thought was great--but apparently it's too low? There's not a huge amount of info out there about low cholesterol--just that it frequently comes from malabsorption. (Note: I was only gluten free for about 3 months leading up to this.)

I saw elsewhere on the forum that numbers weren't considered low above 100, but this BBC article says 160 is low--and that levels under that are linked to anxiety and depression: Open Original Shared Link

Anyone else have a history of low cholesterol?

[cassP]

oh this is going to be a VERY debatable topic. i seriously think that we're not getting the "whole story" with cholesterol numbers- if you notice- the docs keep lowering the ranges (I THINK to push Statins).

honestly i do not know what is "too low". i think we need SOME cholesterol to move the nutrients throughout our body. and i definitely think a woman of childbearing age should naturally have higher numbers than men. i also think the TOTAL # is nowhere near as important as the individual: HDL, LDL, Trigycerides, Lipoprotein a, Homocysteine, and C-Reactive Protein.

?? looking forward to others input here

[ravenwoodglass]

Low choleserol was one of the first things to show up when I started getting really ill from the celiac. Doctors would tell me how great that was and not bother to listen when I told them how much butter, ice cream and fatty foods I ate. If you are early in on the healing, the three month mark you speak of, then those numbers should rise to more normal levels after you have healed. Get the levels retested periodically.

[bluebonnet]

my total was 115. but my hdl's were only 28. that is seriously low and hard to increase. they told me it can increase with exercise (which i do) and avoiding stuff with transfat or sat. fat. i am curious to see how much it increases at my next checkup since going gluten free.

[Roda]

I too had low HDL that needed raised and my triglyceride level was almost off the chart low. I had a doctor tell me that I was lucky! I didn't know any better at the time as these tests were done as part of an employee health benefit around 6 years ago. I just had it rechecked in April and everything has normalized. I still need to raise the HDL some more though. My father and brother have the same thing and have as long as I can remember. I belive both of them to be celiac, but my brother refuses testing, and Dad had blood testing (don't know his values) but his doctor told him he was fine. I think he had false negative tests.

here are a couple links:

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Too bad I was "lucky" then. I could have been diagnosed years before I was.