Celiac and High Cholesterol!!

[bcouture]

Hi,
It has been one year since I was diagnosed... -- worked all year finding food lists, restaurant lists etc. Got the diet down to where I thought I was doing great... My blood tests = iron etc were good; got over all the body changes, depression etc and feeling 100%.

BUT!!! my cholesterol went way up.

It seems the foods I found satisfying and able to eat were all foods high in cholesterol and the cholesterol level went way up.... Now to lower the cholesterol naturally. I totally "screwed" myself (excuse the expression).

What happened was too much of the following:
GF bread w/butter, jam or peanut butter
1 gal of 2% milk a week
GF cookies (occasionally)
GF pasta (occasionally)
Eggs
Rice Pudding (lots)
Ice cream
At restaurants I would order prime rib or steak with baked potato & Veg's with butter etc.

Now I have to cut-out all of the above...

The object now is reduce all dairy products considerably
Eat more grains ?????? what???? brown rice!!
Reduce the red meats
Reduce the breads by 90%
Consume more fruits and VEg's
Reduce my milk -

Guess I need to find a diet specialist to help me balance the two dietsl

According the the cholesterol lowering food book I should :
Eat less saturated fat
Low Cholesterol foods (dairy products etc)
Eat MORE complex carbohydrates
Eat more grains
Exercise
Drink 8 glasses of water

Any suggestions - or help will be greatly appreciated.

[aklap]

Hey Barb!!!

I'm glad to hear your doing well with the GF diet! Looking back 1 year ago...would you ever have thought you would feel as good as you do right now?

I wonder if your cholesterol is more of an absorption issue. I think I remember reading that celiacs can have low cholesterol levels because they are not absorbing correctly Now that you are healing (or are healed), your are now absorbing properly which could affect things drastically

I have been dairy reduced for several months (probably 6 or 7). I rarely use butter - I use oil olive. I use Rice Milk. I still have a bit of ice cream.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[bcouture]

Hello Al,
Nice of you to respond to my message.

[aklap]

Hi Barb

OH NO! Sorry to hear that. Oats are controversial as to their safeness. There is supposed to be high contamination factor with them. Some people react to the protein in oats like they do with the protein in wheat.

McCann's Irish Oats are supposed to be GF. They are grown, harvested & processed in/on/with dedicated things just for oats (no wheat).

I have not tried them. I'm staying away from them until more research comes in.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[Nikster57]

I am afraid of that myself. I don't know about you, but my birthfather is Cherokee Indian(supposedly) and my birthmother Irish. Indians have a predisposition to high cholesterol levels. I find it hard to give up my butter but olive oil is a good choice and they have olive oil butter at the store and it isn't bad. Do you have a juicer? Try juicing fruit and adding spinach or broccoli to it. It really is quit tasty and you get vitamins that help lower cholesterol. Good luck to you.
_________________
Nikki from Texas

[confang]

Try baking bread yourself. Some recipes take some real know how, while others are fool proof and you can substitute butter or crisco with olive oil or a low colesterol margerine. When eating out my daughter( the celiac of our family) can ussually find a chicken or fish plate and loves to substitue her vegies for fruit.

[GC1]

From one of my 'trinity' of health books; Dr. Weil suggests that eating high amounts of saturated fats AND high-glycemic carbs may be the number one cause of high cholesterol. This makes sense to me, so I avoid the HG carbs (and carbs in general) in the same manner as "bad fats"... after all; I've seen the other things that can happen with grains, etc.
Having Type O blood, it's been advised to reduce carbs, as our ancestors (generally) ate less carbs, and we still respond poorly to this, especially modern processed foods.

GC