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I closed the page immediately upon seeing total cholesterol. Being on a ketogenic diet, it'd probably tell me I'm at risk because the diet increases both HDL and big LDL particles (the harmless kind). Total cholesterol is meaningless.

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In fact, there was some study (can't find the link) showing that people with moderately higher LDL lived longer than people with LDL that's in norm. I'm also on a ketogenic diet and my HDL is over 100, triglycerides below 70, and LDL is a bit high, but total cholesterol is way high due to high HDL. It's totally unscientific to use LDL given it includes HDL and the higher the HDL, the better with no set up limit (unlike many markers). HDL/triglycerides is the only meaningful ratio in the standard lipid profile. Also, there's some truth in doing subfractioning of LDL, which almost nobody does as it's expensive and not part of official lipid profile testing as far as I know. Edit: Grammar.

> It's totally unscientific to use LDL given it includes HDL

I agree that total LDL is not a good indicator unless you do subfractioning, but I think you meant total cholesterol here, as LDL does not include HDL (that wouldn't even make sense!).

Yes, I made a mistake, but you got my point. As you may have in-norm LDL and very HDL and then your TC will be in the danger zone, which doesn't make any sense.

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