Heme iron (in meat, and especially organ meat, also egg yolk) is a lot more digestible than the iron in plants.
Things you probably know about cholesterol, but just in case:
You need some cholesterol. It is the primary component of cell walls, and is also important in synthesizing hormones and other stuff.
The ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol matters more than total cholesterol. Or maybe it’s the amount of LDL. There are competing hypotheses. But you should be following your LDL levels and ratios, not just total cholesterol levels.
Dietary cholesterol is nearly irrelevant to blood cholesterol.
What fatty acids you eat has a lot of influence over cholesterol levels.
Statins have a huge influence on cholesterol levels, and have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Saturated fats (like the ones in meat) increase cholesterol, but they increase both LDL and HDL.
Trans fats, which still exist in small amounts in some processed foods, tend to raise LDL and not HDL. Avoid trans fats like the plague. If the label says “0 grams” it means it’s there, but there’s less than a gram (or maybe half a gram) in a serving. Do you ever eat more than one serving?
Do you cook with cast iron? Or use one of those little iron fish thingies in your pots? It’s a little boost, but might help? I am not an expert in iron, admittedly. I take a prenatal vitamin because it has a little extra iron to keep my levels up for donating blood, but I am not anemic.
I’ve been looking at saturated fat but not trans fat. Mostly just trying to avoid junk but I do look at labels when I buy stuff. I don’t count anything, just try to eat according to plan as often as possible. And avoid eating out. I carry kind bars and little 100 calorie packs of no salt mixed nuts for “emergencies”.
We often use cast iron but I don’t use it exclusively bc it’s too heavy. I didn’t know about the cast iron fish—something to look for.
So I looked at a bunch of vitamins yesterday, including kids and prenatals and had a hard time finding any with iron. The teen vitamins had iron, but also calcium. I have a bone density scan on Tuesday & can’t have calcium supplements, so I bought some gummies with iron and vitamin C only.
I haven’t tried to find a prenatal with iron but without calcium. I take the target brand prenatal, which has 28mg of iron in it…but also 200mg of calcium.
My understanding is that trans fat is considerably worse than saturated fat. So if you’re reducing your saturated fat by subbing trans fat then you may be doing more harm than good.
Trans fat is quite literally the worst to my understanding. Unsaturated fat = mostly good and fine unless excessive. Saturated, not good but okay in moderation. Trans fats, have as little to none of it as possible.
I’m mostly reducing saturated fat by eating chicken and fish instead of beef and pork. Also I’ve cut out most processed foods. (Even creamer! But for now I’m cutting out coffee altogether bc it can inhibit iron absorption? Idk, too much googling.)
Isn’t trans fat the stuff that makes margarine spreadable? Or is it in butter? Or ghee? I need to google it but I also need to take a day to not think about this stuff.
I only need to not have calcium until tomorrow when I have my bone density test. And then I’ll find out if I need to add it. I’m pretty sure my bones bend but don’t break. Not gonna test that on purpose though.
Couldn’t help myself and googled trans fat. I rarely eat fried food. I cut out creamer. I do occasionally have some butter or margarine on my toast, maybe once a week.
Trans fat is man-made, and doesn’t occur in meat, fish, poultry, milk, or butter (or ghee). It does occur in margarine, creamer, and many processed foods. It used to be widespread, but is now only used in small amounts, due to regulatory changes.
It was widely used by the industry to replace natural saturated fat, as it is a form of saturated fat, and it has a lot of the same properties (solid or semi-solid at room temp, less likely to go rancid, withstands higher temps) as natural saturated fat, but is cheaper and (due to industry lobbying) wasn’t included in the “saturated fat” number on nutrition labels.
Naturally saturated fat is cis, with (I forget the exact details but) various important bonds on the same side of the molecule, while trans fat has those bonds on opposite sides. Fun fact, that’s the meaning of “trans” in “trans gender”. It’s not about people who transition or change, it’s about people who have a gender that’s on the “other side” from their sex assigned at birth. The most I’ve ever used my organic chemistry course after college was that I understood “cis gender” the first time I heard it.
Cream, which has cis fat and very little sugar, is less unhealthy than creamer, which often has trans fat and usually is sweetened. The benefits of creamer are that it’s a lot cheaper and it can keep well as a powder.
If you are avoiding processed food, you probably don’t have much trans fat to remove from your diet, though. So good job.
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Kind of makes you wonder what “transparent” is really suppose to mean . . . and its corresponding implication for the definition of “parent”
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Trans fat is the stuff that makes margarine a solid rather than a liquid.
Butter does not contain any trans fat. Saturated fat, but not trans fat.
Some people will substitute margarine for butter in the name of eating healthier, and that is counter-productive. Subbing chicken for beef is good though, as is eating more fruits & veggies.
Finally woke up today and I’m only just slightly itchy, likely due to the many small scabs from scratching myself out of the occasional heavily-medicated dead sleep.
Recently hit a tipping point where I was in tears as noted above and my lovely (although too happy to prescribe drugs above her punching weight) PCP noted it started a few weeks after taking the Naltrexone. Sneaky bastard, it started off looking like 2-3 pimples on my ass, so I took much better care to specifically wash there with proper products and no dice.
Then it took over my body. Every zone except my face, including my neck, hands, top of feed, and holy shit my thighs.
Naltrexone drug-induced explosion urticaria appears to be the final diagnosis unless something on my trajectory significantly changes.
Speaking of, thank the gods for WFH. If I had to be in office that whole time rather than at home in (or not in) my underwear, taking multiple showers a day, clearly in pain…
I’m never going to a mandatory in-office job and would start looking if my company changed to such.
I’m glad you’re feeling much better. But, I know you were also struggling with your alcohol intake. I hope you’re able to find another treatment that works for you, without the reactions.
That’s on its own path which is better than it was long ago and still worse than it should be. I’m in therapy though and most nights have 0-1 drinks, occasionally too much. It really fell by the wayside under my pain so I’m inching back into total (alcohol) sobriety. Hoping to get to a place where I can have 1 casual cocktail and be done but my brain goes “Those are calories and if you’re going to drink them just have 4 you idiot.”
