LDL Particles

Find out the size of your LDL particles — dense, small, or large?

You begin first by finding out whether you have inherited large or small, dense LDL particles. You need to start with a blood test that shows how your body responds to specific diets, vegan, vegetarian, low-carb, or modified Paleo. If you have a specific genetic response to certain diets, perhaps type O blood, and also thin blood that doesn’t clot easily in response to saturated fats, with large LDL particles, you may want to research the Paleo diet. See, Dr. James L. D’Adamo ND – Creator of the Blood Type Diet®. The most important point to remember is to find out how your blood responds to certain ancestral diets.

If you have type AB or A blood that does clot easily and has small LDL particles, you can look at vegetarian diets, but only in so far as you can observe how your body or genes are responding to specific diets. If your LDL particles grow larger on low-carb diets, keep researching that to see for how long it lasts. If your LDL particles grow larger on a vegetarian or vegan diet, see how long that lasts. For type B blood, the so-called balanced blood type, check out the size of your LDL particles and how your blood responds metabolically to certain foods. Check out the site,Eat Right For Your Type: What Makes a ‘Type B’ an Individual?

What doctors are looking for when they see small LDL particles

Can you treat small LDL particles with a low saturated fat diet, weight loss, exercise, or must you be ‘forced’ to take statin drugs that don’t really stop you from getting that attack? What factors other than your genes also lower levels of small, dense LDL particles and turn them into large LDL particles?

That’s what nutritionists are trying to find out. For example, if it runs in families, could more vegetables and fruits help, or do you need a higher protein diet perhaps richer in GABA to feel calmer? It’s all about tailoring your food and lifestyle to your genes.

It’s not how high your LDL cholesterol is, but how tiny are the dense LDL particles

According to the article, “The new blood lipid tests–sizing up LDL cholesterol,” Posted in Heart Health on June 13, 2008, it’s not how high your LDL cholesterol is, but how tiny the dense particles of LDL are that predicts whether or not you have a threefold greater risk of coronoary heart disease. Now you can take a test to measure the particle size of your LDL cholesterol. Ask your doctor for this type of test.

Small, dense particles run in families. You’ve been told only than low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is the “bad” kind that causes heart attacks. No, it’s the small size of the LDL particles that causes such health problems, and it’s genetic. LDL particles come in all shapes and size.

Small LDL particles are more dangerous than big LDL particles

The big particles won’t harm you, scientists report. Doctors have long known this, but only in the last few years have scientists shared with the public that small LDL particles are more dangerous than big LDL particles. That’s why you need to ask for a lab test to measure levels of dangerously small LDL particles.

Instead, are you still getting the old fashioned test given to most people to screen patients for cardiovascular disease? The old test measures four lipids in the blood: LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind), total cholesterol, and triglycerides. Then you’re told that a high level of LDL cholesterol is one of the most accurate predictors of cardiovascular trouble. That’s not true. Half of all people who suffer heart attacks have average blood levels of this lipoprotein.

Scientists study lipoprotein packages in which cholesterol travels

Why are so many people with normal LDL cholesterol levels still be at increased risk for heart disease? It’s because no one was studying the lipoprotein packages that cholesterol travels around in–until recently. Cholesterol is a fat that won’t dissolve in water. To circulate in the blood, which is mostly water, cholesterol is wrapped in a protein shell to form a lipoprotein.

The test uses an electron microscope to see how large your LDL particles appear. If the particles are small and dense, your chances increase threefold of heart disease issues. Big, buoyant LDL particles are relatively benign. Small, dense LDL particles slip through the cells and come rolling in like the fog on tiny cat feet, to be inspired by Carl Sandburg, the poet. Realistically, though the small LDL particles line the walls of arteries.

These small LDL particles get oxidized fast

Only oxidized LDL can enter the macrophages in the lining of the arteries and form cholesterol- rich plaques, according to the article, “The new blood lipid tests–sizing up LDL cholesterol.” Next what happens, is that the plaques get larger inside the coronary arteries, and blood flow to the heart can be reduced.

What if a clot breaks off and results in a heart attack or stroke? Blood levels of small, dense LDL cholesterol increase with elevated triglyceride levels. But you see, it’s genetic. Small LDL particles run in families. You don’t want high concentrations of these LDL particles in your arteries building up plaque.

Are you eating foods that reduce your high triglyceride levels? Is your doctor talking to you about fish oil? And if you’re taking fish or krill oil, does it thin your blood or reduce your high triglyceride levels? What foods do? That’s what your research needs to also focus in addition to testing and activities where you’re not sitting all day without breaks.

What about aged garlic extract? Did your doctor tell you what it can do to help some people? But can it help you as in individual with your particular genes? This is the type of research you can be looking into to see what works just for you. All you can do is read information for educational purposes. But only a medical doctor can legally tell you what foods or supplements to try because of the numerous cases of bleeding or clotting reported with some types of supplements and even deaths if you check out all the reviews online of various types of supplements given by master herbalists.

You need to know foremost what works for you. Don’t be a guinea pig. But do research information and find out how your blood responds to anything you eat or changes you make. Read all you can about how to increase your LDL particle size with foods. Then when you test your blood for particle size and thickness at your next physical exam, see whether anything worked well for you. Thin your blood too much and you get a bleeding problem. Thicken it too much, and you may end up with clots.

Blood levels of small, dense LDL cholesterol increase with elevated triglyceride levels

Studies show that people whose LDL cholesterol is predominantly small and dense have a threefold greater risk of coronary heart disease. Other studies suggest that determining the number of small, dense particles in the blood predicts the risk of heart disease more accurately than simply measuring total LDL cholesterol.

One widely used test, called the NMR LipoProfile, analyzes the size of lipoprotein particles in the blood by measuring their magnetic properties. Several others, including the LipoPrint and the Berkeley (from Berkeley HeartLab) use electrical fields to distinguish the size and other attributes of lipoprotein particles. Still another, known as the VAP (for Vertical Auto Profile) test, separates lipoprotein particles using a highspeed centrifuge.

Can your doctor really tell you how small your LDL particles are based on knowing blood levels of LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides from the standard blood lipid test? Or is a family history required, a genogram?

What about your exercise habits, smoking addiction, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels? How do you want your treatment–natural or conventional medicine?

Look at your triglycerides. You doctor can make a prediction based on whether you have small, dense LDL particles based simply by looking at your levels of triglycerides and HDL. If your HDL is high, there’s not really a problem. But the real issue is how to raise your HDL from foods or supplements without conventional drugs?

Triglyceride levels higher than 120 mg/dL and an HDL level below normal (less than 40 mg/dL in men and less than 50 mg/dL in women) are usually associated with small, dense LDL particles. What happens if your HDL was higher before menopause and is worse 20 years later? Can you stop the progression with food and supplements or do you have to go on drugs for life?

Small, dense LDL particles slip through the cells and come rolling in like the fog on tiny cat feet, to partially emulate the poet, Carl Sandburg. A vegan diet may help some individuals when they want to increase the size of their LDL particles. But a low-carb diet will help others. It all depends on how your genes respond metabolically and chemically to the diet.

Some people have the blood type that works better with a vegan diet than a blood type that works better with a modified Paleo diet. Others need those low-carb foods.What you need to be searching for are foods and nutrition-based solutions tailored to your body’s needs that can make the size of your LDL particles bigger so that they can’t clog your arteries, since small or large LDL particles are inherited.

You need to check out what you eat and your activities to see whether you are doing your best to increase the size of your LDL particles. Check out the articles, Low-carbohydrate diets increase LDL: debunking – Protein Power, The Effect of Dietary Fat on LDL Size Is Influenced by Apolipoprotein, LDL particle size | laboratorytesting.com, and How To Increase Ldl Particle Size | Livestrong.com.

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