in today's video we are going to be talking about hdl cholesterol and how to raise it naturally hdl
or high density lipoprotein is widely seen as the good type of cholesterol the type that you
want to keep high hdl goes around the bloodstream collecting excess cholesterol and shuttles it back
to the liver where it is broken down and discarded low hdl levels are associated with a higher heart
disease risk even more so than high ldl levels are but it is important to note the drugs that
increase hdl artificially do not have the same protective effect as naturally high hdl and this
is key to understand you need to increase your hdl naturally in order to decrease your heart disease
and other disease risk if you have low hdl levels that you want to increase
stick around because today's video is going to be three steps you can take to increase hdl naturally
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is kait i'm a health coach and i post
videos on a high fat nutrient dense way of eating if you like this video please give it a thumbs up
feel free to share and make sure to subscribe and make sure to follow me on instagram twitter and
facebook where i share new posts every single day as i mentioned at the start of this video having
low hdl is associated with a greater heart disease risk even more so than having high ldl which is
often what is focused on studies from as far back as the 1970s have noticed the relationship between
low hdl and heart disease one study from 1977 said the major potent lipid risk factor was hdl
cholesterol which had an inverse association with the incidence of coronary heart disease a
weaker association with the incidence of coronary heart disease was observed for ldl cholesterol and
several other studies have confirmed this since so what is considered to be low and
what is considered to be optimal when it comes to hdl hdl levels below 40 milligrams per deciliter
or one millimolar per liter are considered to be low and levels over 60 milligrams per deciliter
1.55 millimolars per liter are considered to be optimal so in today's video we're going to start
off by talking about what hdl is and what ldl is and what they say about our health and then
we will get into the three steps you can take to increase your hdl and make sure to stick around
until the end because number three might surprise you hdl and ldl as i mentioned before hdl stands
for high density lipoprotein and is considered to be good cholesterol the type that you want to keep
high on the flip side we have ldl which stands for low density lipoprotein and is considered to be
the bad type of cholesterol that we want to keep low now i think that labeling these two types of
cholesterol good and bad is an overly simplistic view neither hdl or ldl on their own is bad
both do play a really important role in the body the current paradigm says that ldl cholesterol
causes heart disease and that's why you want to keep it low but there's more to the story
than that leading experts in the field have found that our hdl to triglyceride ratio
is a better indicator of heart disease risk than just looking at ldl alone having high hdl and
low triglycerides is considered optimal whereas having high triglycerides and low hdl puts you
at a greater disease risk furthermore a study from 2016 reevaluated one of the largest control trials
in the field and found some interesting results that were never published the
study they looked at replaced saturated fat in the diets of participants with
polyunsaturated fat and although ldl decreased the risk of death from cardiovascular disease
did not decrease and in those over 60 years of age high ldl is actually inversely associated
with all-cause mortality i have a whole other video on why ldl might increase on a low carb
or ketogenic diet that you might want to check out before continuing with this video you can check it
out here but back to hdl because that is the focus of today you can think of hdl like a cleanup squad
it circulates your bloodstream and picks up excess cholesterol transporting it back to the liver to
be broken down and discarded from the body so the more hdl you have the better really there is no
upper limit and now that you understand a little bit more about what hdl is and what it does in the
body let's get into the three steps you can take to increase it naturally number one quit smoking
we're going to start off today talking about smoking simply because the connection is crystal
clear between quitting smoking and hdl increasing drastically if you aren't a smoker bear with me
because the next two tips will be applicable to you but i really wanted to start here because even
if you implement the other tips that we talk about today if you're still smoking i don't want to say
it's pointless but it's kind of pointless a review that looked at 45 studies both observational and
controlled trials concluded that quitting smoking is clearly associated with an increase in hdlc
concentrations generally the increase occurs rapidly in less than three weeks three weeks of
quitting smoking is all it takes to increase hdl significantly like i said even if you implement
all the other tips in this video it really needs to start here number two eat more saturated fat if
you are new to my channel you might be surprised that i'm recommending you eat more saturated fat
saturated fat is what causes heart disease isn't it the answer is no saturated fat has been wrongly
demonized for decades when in reality saturated fat raises hdl which as we have already discussed
is protective against heart disease more and more evidence is emerging to support this with
one large review done earlier this year finding no beneficial effects of reducing saturated fatty
acid intake on cardiovascular disease and total mortality and instead found protective effects
against stroke dave feldman is a researcher who has done a lot of experiments on himself
when it comes to diet and cholesterol he has found several times over that the more fat he
eats the more his hdl increases some ways to get more saturated fat in your diet include
eating more fatty cuts of meat and cooking with more fats that are solid at room temperature
such as ghee butter and coconut oil these types of fat are the best for cooking
anyways i will link a video up above on the best cooking oils and why they are the best
so if you want to know more you can check that out afterwards and number three intermittent fast
intermittent fasting means you fast for a certain period of time every day this can be anywhere from
12 to 22 hours generally and then you eat all of your food for the day in a condensed time period
i'm going to need to give a little bit of an explanation about how intermittent fasting
ties in here so bear with me i promise this is really important so earlier in this video
i mentioned that your triglyceride to hdl ratio was a really good indicator of your heart disease
risk you can find this ratio by dividing your triglycerides by your hdl now you have to do
this calculation in milligrams per deciliter so if your test results are in millimolar per liter
go to thebloodcode.com calculator and they have a tool to convert your numbers and find your ratio
a ratio under 2.0 signifies you have a low heart disease risk a ratio of 2 to 3 indicates some risk
and anything over 3 is a high risk and funnily enough or actually not so funny this is also a
really good indicator of how insulin sensitive or insulin resistant you are now if you aren't too
familiar with what insulin and insulin resistance are here's a short summary insulin is a hormone
that is known as the fat storage hormone when we eat insulin increases in order to take the energy
from our bloodstream and bring it to our cells now when we become insulin resistant our cells
stop responding to insulin this causes our insulin to remain elevated and our blood sugar to remain
elevated for much longer than they should insulin resistance comes with a long list of side effects
such as making it difficult to lose weight an increase in visceral fat or belly fat and pcos
in women it is also essentially pre-diabetes and will eventually lead to type 2 diabetes
and it increases your risk of a whole host of other diseases as well so if you have a high
triglyceride to hdl ratio you can almost guarantee that you have some degree of insulin resistance
now if you are insulin resistant don't panic insulin resistance is reversible and the really
cool thing is that as your insulin sensitivity improves your triglycerides go down and your hdl
goes up which is what we are after and now let's tie it back to intermittent fasting because the
best way to improve your sensitivity and reverse insulin resistance is intermittent fasting because
think of it this way insulin resistance is caused by too much insulin if we are constantly eating
throughout the day and constantly eating foods that are high in carbs specifically
because these are what stimulate insulin the most our bodies are constantly pumping
out insulin and eventually our cells cannot take any more glucose and they shut the door
so when you are intermittent fasting obviously you're not eating your body is not pumping out
insulin and your insulin sensitivity improves by sticking to an intermittent fasting schedule you
can improve your insulin sensitivity reverse insulin resistance and in turn increase hdl
and reduce your heart disease risk and those are my three easy tips to raise hdl cholesterol
naturally but here's the thing those who are metabolically healthy who are at a healthy
body weight tend to have higher hdl than those who are overweight or obese not only
that but also triglycerides are lower blood pressure is normal and blood sugar is normal
signifying better cardiovascular health because all modern day diseases more or less
go hand in hand obesity heart disease high blood pressure type 2 diabetes all of these and more
are intertwined and strongly linked to insulin resistance most people who suffer these modern
day diseases don't suffer from just one they suffer from multiple and there's a reason for that
there is a root cause that is at the center of all of them insulin resistance and by actually
addressing the root cause you can work to reverse these conditions and not just manage the symptoms
and insulin resistance can manifest years if not decades before these other diseases do so if you
suspect you might be insulin resistant or just want to know for sure i do have a whole playlist
on the topic you can check out afterwards in that playlist there's a video on signs and symptoms of
insulin resistance and there's also a video on how to test it both at home and with your doctor so i
will link that above and you can check it out afterwards but what i really wanted to finish
off this video by saying is that a lot of these conditions are reversible and there is something
so empowering in taking your health into your own hands making the changes and getting the results
and on that note i think i'm gonna wrap up today's video let me know in the comment
section down below if you have seen an increase in your hdl and what you did to achieve it as always
give this video a thumbs up share it with a friend and make sure to leave a comment down below i love
reading your comments and chatting with you guys i try to reply to as many comments as
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thank you again guys for watching if you did enjoy this video you might also like my video on signs
and symptoms of insulin resistance which you can check out here if you want to catch up on my most
recent upload you can find it here and if you are interested in learning more about my keto diet and
carnivore diet coaching programs you can find them here thanks again guys i'll see you next time bye