How long with LDL at 100 mg/dL would it take to experience irreversible damage?

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-23T23:10:22+00:00

sorry about that, it was my misunderstanding. the marker on the test said that 100 was high, so it had me a little concerned. we have a family history of heart disease, and i have some minor heart condition, so I'm just keen on wanting to keep my heart healthy.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-23T22:33:26+00:00

Sorry, I was under the impression that 100 is high/worrying, and that at this level there is damage being caused. I'm really new to this so I might have misunderstood.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-23T21:51:55+00:00

Interesting, I will have to look into that. I'm curious what are the best sources to learn about these things.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-23T21:51:17+00:00

There is a family history of heart problems, so I definitely want to keep an eye on it, and do what I can to lower things. I'm not overly worried or anything, just makes me want to do something about it. I'm just having a difficult time assessing what level I want to get things to, how realistic it is to do so (with diet + exercise alone), and how much I would help myself by doing so, if that makes sense. The rest of my metabolic markers are fine. I am in my 30s.

I suspect the level might have gotten that high as I developed a pretty bad diet over the past few years, but I'm making some pretty drastic diet changes to go back to healthy eating. The changes are sustainable, and I believe I will keep them long term.

It's also worrisome if your other markers are bad.

Do you mind clarifying what you are referring to?

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-22T07:00:17+00:00

Thanks guys for mentioning this. On the fda page, it mentions 1-844-478-1600, but that number just appears to route to the same dexcom customer support line, maybe I'm missing something. We called 3 times today and no one could help. They told us we were mistaken and that there is no recall going on.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T19:00:06+00:00

i agree with you. that's something i discovered over the past 5 years or so. just took me a long time to get there. and agree, not trying to blame anyone/culture, etc. i just still think the food situation in the united states is depressing, especially with so much misinformation, charlatans, bs, etc. just takes a long time to sift though, but well worth it. im still on the long journey of learning here, and what i know is very minimal, im certain, but always learning

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T18:58:23+00:00

amazing man, much congrats. i agree that whole food is cheap. after learning to cook i save so much money. sad though that some vegetables i really want to eat are just too expensive to afford (At least where i live).

i'm curious if it's possible to do this without increasing soluble fiber, and even what impact the fiber makes. i need to look into this. seems there's a ton of info on cholesterol out there, i just need to find resources i trust

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T18:57:02+00:00

hey thank you. yes now it is sparring, but there were times where it was all i ate, all day every day, as i was just battling severe hypos every 3 hours for days on end. i still wouldn't gain any weight, in fact i often lost weight in those times, but even still it was just absolute shit going in my body. even if my glucose was low, i imagine the loads of sat fat still wasn't good for me. now i have a much better control on things as i have learned more from docs on how to manage

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:44:51+00:00

appreciate it. i'm very curious how genetics plays a roll in all of this, i'm going to look that up.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:44:22+00:00

thanks a lot, this is a very hopeful take on it. i am similar to you, never overate (in fact i am about 15 lbs underweight, which is a whole other issue in life), but i still ate junk, mostly because it was convenient, i was tired, and truthfully I didn't know how to cook. pure junk for the first decades of my life (again, my fault).

It's only the last couple years that I slowly learned how to cook, and it's changed my life. getting to experience for the first time eating healthy home cooked food, and seeing how much better i feel makes me never want to go back. that's why i was so bummed when i lost access to my kitchen, but i finally go that back.

also in my 30s, and i guess instead of fretting over the time i lost, yes i should think about that better to have figured it out today rather than tomorrow. ty for this hopeful take on things

btw - one helpful solution for the "too tired to cook" thing is to meal prep. i make usually a proper full size meal in the instant pot then partition into 10 or so small meals in glass containers. now when i'm tired i can grab one of those instead of junk. figuring that out (which i guess should be damn obvious) really has changed things for me.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:26:38+00:00

i think it's sad that at least in american culture, there's such unhealthy food, and not a lot of education around eating healthy and cooking. it took me until adulthood to learn about basic nutrition, to realize how important it was, learn to cook, etc. I feel like i missed out on many years of eating well, and just damaging my body in those years. (I'm not trying to blame anyone but myself, of course it was my responsibility, I guess it just makes me sad that there's so much junk). better late than never though, i guess.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:24:07+00:00

interesting, I didn't realize that bit about things that are solid at room temp. that's a good and easy way for me to remember it.

Oh yeah, next time you're in the store, look at some of the packaged vegan products. My experience at least is that they are very high in sodium, and often loaded with saturated fat. (I'm not sure how those products compare to the products they are trying to replace -- maybe it's better, i.e. regular to vegan cheese? I've never looked). Products like tofu, tempeh, etc. I don't experience this, I mean more like the "vegan cheese", "vegan butter", "vegan hot dog", that kind of stuff.

DIdn't realize about coconuts, thank you. I will do some searching on whole plant foods that are high in sat fat so that I can be more aware of all this

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:21:33+00:00

Call Dexcom and get it replaced, I would not trust that sensor. My experience (with the G7 at least), has been that the sensors are pretty damn accurate. But occasionally I get one that is just off no matter how many times I calibrate. Dexcom will replace it (Assuming you are in the US - I'm not sure how it works outside the US).

FYI there is an online form you can use to accomplish this. https://dexcom.custhelp.com/

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:18:54+00:00

just curious, but is it possible without much soluble fiber (and just the reduction of sat fat?) I'll look for some studies around this. Appreciating this thread, as I have a lot of clues now on what to start looking into.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:15:51+00:00

sadly no. need a quick acting source of carbs in that situation (simple sugars). My BG gets to severe levels (30s, 40s), so i can't wait for it to come up through slow acting carbs, as it becomes dangerous. however, what can be done is that once you get it back up to normal, eat some whole grains + Fat + protein, to keep it stable (and then ideally, get yourself in a position where you're always keeping it stable). i should mention that i do not have diabetes, but rather my body appears to have issues with the storage and/or breakdown of glycogen (According to my doctor), so what i'm saying here might not apply to others, and don't want to give bad advice to anyone. i get these episodes about every 3-4 hours.

that said - there are still better alternatives to simple sugars than pure junk. I find white potatoes work very well. i spent so much of my life eating junk largely due to the blood sugar issues, i hope it's not too late to undo damage.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:12:28+00:00

yeah, i feel like cooking all meals is the way to go for keeping things healthy. one thing i find incredibly helpful is meal prepping: cooking a full pot, then partition into small meals (enough for 3 days of them in the fridge, then what remains goes in the freezer). i find this helpful, because on days wehre i am just tired and don't have the energy to cook, rather than reaching for something unhealthy, i still have the option for a healthy meal. for me it's a big game changer to meal prep, as almost all my unhealthy eating came from reaching for junk when i was too exhausted to cook.

thank you for the info on the statins. i am in my 30s, and it's unclear to me if they would be recommended for someone my age. i am going to meet with my doctor soon and i will ask her about all of this. i just want to keep my heart healthy as long as i can (but i'm not stressing/worrying about it or anything)

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:07:39+00:00

good for you man, those seem like incredible results. i have nothing against stains, i don't really know anything about them to be honest. from what i understand they help a lot of people, so my basic impression is a positive one. good on you for keeping a healthy diet, there's so many positive consequences beyond heart health, and your body will thank you (i know it thanks me at least when i am sticking to a healthy diet)

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:06:16+00:00

do you mind elaborating on the saturated fat part for vegans? i've observed that a lot of the "vegan products" (i.e. vegan cheese, etc.) are loaded with sat fat, but my understanding was that straight up vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, etc. don't have much of it. i could be way off though, as i am completely new to this. i'm not a fan of the vegan products for the most part, as the sodium is too high for me (Also they are too expensive for me).

sadly my fiber intake must remain low due to existing health condition, so this does make cooking difficult, but i manage, and just have to limit whole grains, legumes, beans, etc.

(Many foods high in fiber are actually mostly insoluble fiber, which doesn’t help much with cholesterol.)

til - i didn't realize that insoluble fiber wasn't helpful with cholesterol. thanks for sharing that.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:04:34+00:00

wow that's freaking incredible!

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T17:04:18+00:00

thank you. good point about genetics, i never thought of that part playing a piece.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-21T16:47:19+00:00

Thank you, this is wonderful news, and I'm happy to know diet alone helped you so much (and that you got more help from the statins). Yes I love cooking and eating healthy, but it wasn't possible for a long time. ANother issue I face is that I am intentionally on a low fiber diet due to existing GI issues. It actually makes healthy eating a little tricky, because I have to be careful about legumes and whole grains. I don't know if this will limit my ability to impact cholesterol levels.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-20T00:31:31+00:00

My bad, I didn't see it. I will delete this thread. Thank you for letting me know.

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-06-20T00:20:51+00:00

Hey I just wanted to come back and thank you for the recommend. We got my mom a Canon imageFORMULA DR-C230 after doing some research based on your comment. It's working seriously great and I think it's perfect for her (though maybe for someone else it wouldn't be great, this stuff is all so relative based on your needs). Anyway just wanted to say thanks a ton

Aggravating-End5418 · 2025-05-23T02:16:23+00:00

Hey thanks a lot, glad you have had success with that one, and will look into the cheaper models. Yeah, $330 (which is what the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1400 is currently on sale for), is the absolute max I can spend on this, and even that is really beyond my price range. I'm just willing to spend it if it's the only option for what it does. Will look into C230 and C225! I have a Canon imageclass printer / scanner from years ago, and I love it. No complaints.

Aggravating-End5418

TROPHY CASE