Somebody give me an explanation on trends of lipid profile parameters in diabetics?

Question

is it normal for one to have HDL cholesterol as low as 0.4mmol/l?

Answer 1

0.4 mmol/L is too low. It should be 1.2 mmol/L or higher. HDL is a good cholesterol which prevents heart attack. If you multiply the figure into 39, you will get mg/dL. You should also try to reduce LDL, Serum triglyceride and Serum cholesterol.

Eat a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet. This kind of diet includes cottage cheese, fat-free milk, fish (not canned in oil), vegetables, poultry, egg whites, and polyunsaturated oils and margarines (corn, safflower, canola, and soybean oils). Avoid foods with excess fat in them such as meat (especially liver and fatty meat), egg yolks, whole milk, cream, butter, shortening, lard, pastries, cakes, cookies, gravy, peanut butter, chocolate, olives, potato chips, coconut, cheese (other than cottage cheese), coconut oil, palm oil, and fried foods.
Please see the webpages for more details on HDL, LDL, Triglyceride, VLDL and Cholesterol.

Answer 2

just an addition to the good dr's note...i'm type 1 diabetic for 41 years..and to my understanding, good HDL should be over 50 mg/dl, LDL should be below 100 (for non diabetics it can be up to 130), and normal triglycerides are between 0-150....as he said HDL is very difficult, if not impossible to raise...extreme athletes tend to have higher HDL's, but for us normal folks, that generally isn't the case. i have a lipid profile done every 3 months and my latest numbers were 53, 57, 99...respectively...i try to eat a healthy diet (most of the time) and i take Vytorin, which is a cholesterol lowering drug, that also helps to lower LDL..sorry, but i'm not familiar with the conversion to mml...

Answer 3

American Units are mg/dL while International Units are mmol/L. 0.4 mmol/L is 15 mg/dL and this is lower than average but not unheard of. Lipid disorders in diabetes is the norm rather than the exception. Changes include low HDL, high LDL, and high VLDL (triglycerides). Treatment of the glucose improves lipids but treating both is quite common. Present VLDL and LDL goals for diabetics are very low. It is hard to raise HDL. More sophisticated testing of lipids is inexpensive and widely available.