Juliegee wrote:I completely understand what you’re trying to do, but would suggest chasing sdLDL probably isn’t necessary in your case. Given that you had a rock bottom measurement of small LDL-P from your last NMR, I can easily hypothesize with higher fat that has decreased that even further which would subsequently translate to a very low sdLDL.
Remember this from George?
From what I recall on an NMR small LDL-P lower limit of detection is 90. When I had this, my sdLDL was ~27. In any case sdLDL <90 is an excellent number! As I recall, Dr. Gundry said, "you aren't expressing any sdLDL".
FWIW, my preference is always the NMR. You get a lot of information; the best bang for your buck. I also like that you’d be comparing apples to apples. The deal on Spectracell, however, may be too good to pass up. I just saw results from one and it included sdLDL, adiponectin, and other cool biomarkers. (They may have cost extra.) Be sure to request a sample copy of results first so you know exactly what to expect. Also, keep in mind that SpectraCell uses their own reference range with regards to LDL-P- a completely different scale. You'll lose the apples to apples capability that the NMR will provide.
Like Alysson, I’m also surprised at how low your LDL-C is on your last test. Out of curiosity, were your LDL particles classified as Type A or B one that one. I bet it was close. I love how your HDL consistently stays highish (new word) for a guy- even when you drop fat. You have some helpful genes there. I'm always impressed with your experimentation, apod. Kudos to you for tracking, quantifying, tweaking, and constantly improving. IMO, you are a role model for young E4s.
Ah, tricky -- that's annoying that their LDL Particle number will be different than a NMR LDL Particle Number, but it makes sense. Hmm! For the price, I'm still thinking the SpectraCell gives me some interesting data for the $, and perhaps if I test again sometime much further down the road then I'll have these apples to compare against.
On the Paleo diet, with a high intake of saturated fat my LDL Size was 21.6. On the low-SFA / higher carb split, my particle size measured 21.2 -- both of these sit toward the middle of the Pattern A range of 23.0-20.6.
Interestingly, on the Paleo diet my HDL-P measured 29.3 -- marked "Low." Eating less fat, my HDL-P then became 24.5 (Very low?) While I was on the high carb / low carb split, my fat wasn't too low -- I was still eating 900-1,000 calories of just fat alone several days throughout the week on rest days from olive oil, avocado, and nuts. Perhaps this helped to bump up HDL-C a bit (I was also supplementing a little bit of fish oil.) When I was eating the high amount of carbs, this was after heavy glycolytic compound resistance exercise that was performed fasted after 16hrs+ of not eating, where I was then a bit of a sponge for carbohydrate without out too much lipogenesis / triglyceride-raising / hdl-lowering potential. I was eating a bunch of fructose at this time (200 grams+ of sugar while eating at caloric surplus) -- I suspect if I went more starch heavy rather than fruit, the numbers
might have been even better.
I'm slowly figuring some things out! I feel like as long as I'm eating primarily good, fresh food in the form of mostly plants in an omnivorous diet, I should be pretty safe -- there's not a whole lot of tweaking you can do past that point. Although, you can really dig into these macros and micros and food exclusions (eg. lectins...) Lately, I've bumped up protein, but that's a whole other can of worms.