#45 Can High Cholesterol on Keto Be Healthy with Dave Feldman

Dave Feldman (0:00)

In response to going on a low carb diet, my cholesterol went very high. Even existing lipidologists won't say that cholesterol alone causes the problem. It needs to get oxidized, or the particles that carry it, they need to get modified. There needs to be some additional components that make it happen. The more lean and or fit you are, the more likely you'll see your LDL cholesterol go up.

But on top of that, the more likely you'll see your HDL, the good cholesterol go up. Substantially, and your triglycerides go down. They actually may be enjoying a higher level of natural autophagy, or in kind of a blended fasted state.

More relative to somebody who is not a lean mass hyper responder. And therefore may actually be aging a little less.

Siim Land (0:50)

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Siim Land (0:58)

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Siim Land (1:03)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest is Dave Feldman. Dave is a senior engineer and an entrepreneur who has taken the medical world by storm with his thought provoking and revolutionary N equals one experiments with cholesterol and the low carb high fat diet. He runs the website cholesterolcode.com and he has improved the understanding of what's the role of cholesterol in the human body and how does it affect our health.

Dave, I'm glad that you could make it to the podcast and welcome to the show.

Dave Feldman (1:36)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Siim Land (1:38)

Yeah, like after I started researching about you and your work, then I myself have learned so much about cholesterol and it really is, you've done magnificent work in this field of health and medicine. So I wanna thank you for initially for that as well. But I think like everyone also wants to know, how did you get involved with research in cholesterol as an engineer?

Dave Feldman (2:03)

Yeah, well, the story is fairly straightforward. I had an A1c of 6.1 for two years in a row. And on the second year when I got that, they said, well, they'd like to just keep monitoring, as in, let's see what your A1c looks like next year. And I said, well, given type 2 diabetes is a concern of mine, since it's rampant on my dad's side of the family, I'd like to do something about it. So I researched and learned about the low carb ketogenic diet, and I decided to go ahead and go on it.

And fairly quickly, I recognized that there were a lot of other benefits to the diet that I really appreciated. And my dad and my sister got inspired, they ended up doing it at the same time. Well, seven and a half months later, I get my first cholesterol score, and I find out I'm what's known inside the low carb community as a hyper responder. As in, in response to going on a low carb diet, my cholesterol went very high.

And from there, I started researching and found that I saw some familiar patterns for me in the software world, as far as it being a possible network that manages and moves around our cholesterol. And I then started doing a lot of self-experiments to manipulate those numbers, to find out if indeed it was what I thought it was, which was primarily about energy distribution, particularly fat-based energy distribution.

And from there, we're here about two and a half years later. I've done a crazy, stupid amount of experiments. I've had about 88 blood draws, sorry, 89 blood draws. Up to this point, and that doesn't even count the cardio check blood draws. I've definitely seen my lipid numbers well over 100 times at this point for various purposes.

Siim Land (3:57)

Yeah, that's crazy. I've also recognized this sort of a pattern that a lot of physicians or engineers, they get involved into the field of medicine and health because of some health problems themselves. And like, you know, Marty Kendall and John Kiefer and you, they're kind of pioneering the field of low carb dieting almost. But yeah, let's maybe like start talking about the cholesterol. You know, for decades it's been said that it causes heart disease and it's going to clog your arteries. That egg sandwich could have killed you by cholesterol.

What is cholesterol and what role does it play in the human body?

Dave Feldman (4:32)

Well, cholesterol is an organic molecule. It's found just with the animal kingdom. You won't find it in plants. And it's very special because it's literally a part of every single cell in your body. It makes up a portion of the membrane.