Dr. Atkins Advice for Those Who Have High Cholesterol on Keto

Typical Atkins Breakfast: Bacon and Eggs, Salad
High Cholesterol on Atkins requires changes

What do you do if you've been on a low-carb diet for several weeks, but your cholesterol doesn’t improve?

What do you do if you are following the program correctly, haven't cheated even once, and yet, your cholesterol levels have gotten worse?

Many low carbers will tell you that you don’t really have to worry about high cholesterol numbers because the LDL particle size is always the soft fluffy kind, which isn't dangerous.

But how true is that?

Should you just ignore your high cholesterol tests?

And what did Dr. Atkins say about elevated cholesterol? No one ever talks about it, so we are going to change that right now.

For many people, ignoring your cholesterol tests is no longer possible because health insurance companies are beginning to tie health insurance rates, as well as eligibility, to your cholesterol numbers, smoking habits, and other health markers.

If ignoring your elevated cholesterol is not an option and you need to do something about your high numbers right now, this post will show you how to tweak the Atkins Diet to get those numbers to come down.

Insurance Companies Keep Track of Your Cholesterol Numbers

When hubby was working for a major construction company in Utah, we had to take a yearly physical that included cholesterol tests, and then input that information at Cigna’s website.

If we chose not to do this, our insurance rates would increase by 20 percent.

If hubby didn't stop smoking, as well, his company was going to add an additional 10 percent to our monthly bill.

So keeping on top of your cholesterol health isn't as easy as just ignoring what your doctor is telling you about LDL cholesterol particles. Not if you want to keep your health care costs as low as possible.

Although that was the first year that participating in Cigna’s Health Survey was mandatory by the company, Cigna takes those figures, compares them to previous data, and gives you recommended goals that meet their standards.

What the low-carb community believes about cholesterol dangers has nothing to do with it.

The movement in this country toward socialized medicine isn’t likely to allow low-carb dieters to continue ignoring their cholesterol numbers forever.

Standards are bound to get tighter, so thinking about the health implications of what’s going on right now is important for long-term health, as well as weight-loss success.

Despite current thought, Dr. Atkins never took the viewpoint on cholesterol that I hear so often within the low-carb community.

In fact, most dieter’s attitude and justification for ignoring their elevated cholesterol levels are downright frightening because many newcomers are listening to this distorted, twisted advice.

Dr. Atkins View on High Cholesterol

Dr. Atkins is best known for bringing very low-carb diets and low-carb diets into the spotlight, but his life’s work also included nutritional research and vita-nutrient therapy.

As a cardiologist, he didn’t simply slough off elevated levels of blood fats in an effort to blindly defend his ketogenic diet. In fact, he clearly stated that:

“Cholesterol and triglycerides are one of the most widespread causes of heart attacks, strokes, and clogging of the arteries in general.”

What he reminded us of was that high cholesterol levels themselves are not disease. They are blood lipid abnormalities that serve as “predictive factors for a hardening of the arteries.”

If you treat the symptoms without figuring out what’s causing the elevated cholesterol, there’s no guarantee that you will stop or even regress the progress of the disease.

But Dr. Atkins also believed that by bringing your cholesterol numbers in line with the current medical view, you can at least keep yourself off of statins and help avoid their awful side effects.

In addition, he said that:

“high triglycerides and low HDL levels are the two lipid abnormalities that are clearly and unequivocally linked both to insulin resistance and to the intake of carbohydrates.”

Apparently, LDL cholesterol is not.

Those with insulin resistance or high cholesterol on low carb need to avoid excess carbohydrates at even moderate levels because your body’s chemistry, “turns the carbohydrates into triglycerides.”

Triglycerides often interfere with the production of HDL, the good cholesterol that helps transport LDL molecules to the liver to be recycled or eliminated from the body. So, the first thing to check up on is to make sure that hidden carbs are not sneaking into your ketogenic diet.

“The Atkins Center experience [was] that people whose triglyceride levels are more than double their HDL levels (in mg/ml) do better on carbohydrate restriction.”

But that doesn’t hold true for everyone.    

“Some people get the best results by restricting saturated fats, while others do better if they eliminate all sugar from their diet and reduce consumption of carbohydrates. You must learn which works best for you.”

No two individuals will react the same way to dietary and nutritional changes. This is why the Atkins Diet is fine-tuned to fit your particular metabolism and carbohydrate defects. However, Dr. Atkins also believed that elevated cholesterol was a symptom of dysnutrition, and that if you:

“Correct the dysnutrition, you will control your blood cholesterol.”

What You Can Do to Lower Your Cholesterol Levels

It is overly simplistic to say a low-carb diet will automatically improve cholesterol levels because just going keto doesn't work for everyone. What you can do about being fat sensitive depends on how you implement what you learn.

“Occasionally, a major elevation in blood cholesterol does occur in patients on a low-carbohydrate diet.”

But occasionally was Dr. Atkins findings pre-1981.

Today, a typical low-carb diet doesn’t fit the profile of what a low-carb diet for lowering cholesterol should look like. And it doesn't even look like the type of diet that Atkins recommended in his books.

The recipes in Dr. Atkins books didn't use fatty meats.
Lean ham, ground turkey, and London Broil were common.

Although Dr. Atkins has always stated that avoiding eggs and saturated fats are a last resort, his sample menus as late as 2002 had dieters eating:

• lean ham
• ground turkey (instead of beef)
• round steak
• salmon
• low-fat mozzarella cheese

His cornbread recipe even contained real, whole-grain cornmeal along with a soy-based bake mix, and that was specifically for his ongoing weight-loss phase.

As a community, we’ve traveled pretty far out in left field from what Dr. Atkins believed. When Atkins speaks of using a low-carb diet to control your cholesterol levels, he means that you need to:

“Avoid sugar in all of its forms, even fruit and fruit juices, and you should keep your intake of starches to a minimum.”

This is because:

“Diets low in total carbohydrates and alcohol usually lower triglycerides dramatically.”

According to Dr. Atkins, simple sugars elevate triglycerides more dramatically than complex, unrefined carbohydrates. Unlike today's keto experts, he made a very strong distinction between sugars and starches.

While medical professionals don’t always agree on which is worse, triglycerides or total cholesterol, Atkins believed that:

“Both contribute equally to heart disease potential.”

Dr. Atkins cholesterol recommendations require strict attention to the ingredient list on the products and spices you buy. He advised that you avoid any product that contains:

• alcohol
• sugar
• corn syrup
• honey
• fructose
• dextrin
• high-fructose corn syrup
• maltodextrin
• or any of the sugar alcohols

Avoiding the above product ingredients eliminates almost all sugar substitutes, except for those in liquid form, due to the maltodextrin filler, and puts you on a regimen that mostly consists of whole foods.

It also means you should eliminate all products that contain any amount of starch or flour.

While that sounds like a no-brainer, store-brand cream cheese, most brands of mayonnaise, bacon, sausage, extracts made with an alcohol base, and many other typical low-carb foods would not fit into a cholesterol-reducing keto diet.

In addition, the amount of carbohydrates you eat per day needs to be fine-tuned to fit your blood cholesterol levels, rather than for fast weight loss. Some individuals will need to cut their carb intake down drastically.

Vita-Nutrient Therapy

For many dieters, a strict keto diet may still not be enough.

While triglycerides can drop dramatically and HDL increase with a standard low-carb diet, LDL cholesterol levels can be far more stubborn and problematic. We see this tendency a lot within the low-carb community, which is why the advice to ignore your cholesterol tests is so common today.

Cutting down on saturated fat is the typical treatment for elevated LDL cholesterol levels, but Dr. Atkins always preferred to take a nutritional approach to the problem first.

Supplements he recommended included:

• niacin
• pantethine
• inositol
• chromium
• Vitamin C
• essential fatty acids
• fiber supplements
• lecithin granules
• garlic

These nutrients were always included in his treatment program for elevated cholesterol levels.

His view on health was never low-carb tunnel vision. Even from the beginning, Dr. Atkins focus was completely nutritional based.

Dietary Fats

Dr. Atkins recommended cold pressed oils
to avoid chemicals and solvents used in processed oils.

Most medical recommendations lean toward substituting saturated fats with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oils.

While scientific tests have shown the positive results on cholesterol levels when making such changes, Dr. Atkins cautions that an increase in polyunsaturated oils increases your need for Vitamin E.

In addition, He also used to insist that vegetable oils be cold-pressed, rather than chemically extracted.

This insistence was softened a bit and he told readers that cold-pressed oils were best in 2002, rather than mandatory, but his reasons are still valid. Supermarket oils are treated with “gasoline, benzene, carbon disulfide, and/or lye.”

They are also overheated and treated with antioxidants and corn-based defoamers. Many are rancid before they ever reach your table.

Cholesterol and Thyroid

According to Dr. Atkins, another thing to look at if you have elevated cholesterol levels on keto is your thyroid.

In his professional opinion, elevated cholesterol can be a symptom of a sluggish thyroid.

In my own personal experience, I have found this to be true, as a racing thyroid causes your cholesterol level to drop dramatically. If you're hypothyroid, your cholesterol goes too high.

However, Dr. Atkins never relied on thyroid tests to check thyroid function.

He preferred to use your basal body temperature because what he was interested in was how your thyroid was functioning, and not the amount of thyroid that was actually circulating in your bloodstream.

For a sluggish thyroid, Dr. Atkins often used kelp supplements “because kelp contains iodine, the element upon which thyroid function depends.”

Most cases of thyroid deficiency are not due to iodine deficiency, although a fear of salt does seem to be common among low carbers. You can see that in the number of people who continue to believe that the Atkins Flu is inevitable.

Even so, Dr. Atkins saw nothing wrong with giving kelp a try, claiming it was a “relatively safe nutritional technique for cholesterol lowering” when thyroid was suspect.

In fact, in Dr. Atkins clinical experience, metabolic resistance to weight loss in obese individuals was almost always due to thyroid deficiency.

When iodine isn’t the issue, natural or synthetic thyroid hormone may be necessary, but there seems to be as much misinformation among medical authorities regarding thyroid function as there is about cholesterol. 

Most general doctors will go by whatever the lab they use suggests, so if you suspect you might have thyroid issues, it might be best to seek out a thyroid specialist instead of a general or family practitioner.

Sources:

Atkins, Robert C., M.D., Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution: The famous Vogue superdiet explained in full, Bantam Books, New York, 1972.

Atkins, Robert C., M.D., Dr. Atkins’ Nutrition Breakthrough: How to Treat Your Medical Condition Without Drugs, Bantam Books, New York, 1981.

Atkins, Robert C., M.D., Dr. Atkins’ Vita-Nutrient Solution: Nature’s Answer to Drugs, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998.

Atkins, Robert C., M.D., Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution (expanded edition), M. Evans and Company Inc., New York, 2002 (originally published 1992).