Today, Tina and I are diving into the topic of cholesterol—a marker that’s often misunderstood but incredibly important for both fertility and overall health.  We’ll break down why cholesterol matters (yes, even if your levels are “normal”), how to properly test for it, and what your results might be telling you. Plus, we’ll share how to take a more holistic, functional approach to balancing cholesterol—without jumping straight to medication. If you or your partner have never tested cholesterol—or if either of you have elevated cholesterol levels—this podcast is for you.

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Key Takeways

5:24 Triglyceride to HDL ratio explained

11:46 Apolipoproteins and cholesterol particles

18:03 Genetics vs lifestyle for cholesterol levels

24:14 Dangers of statins for fertility

29:32 Strategies to lower triglycerides

34:42 Importance of fiber for cholesterol management

40:20 Genetic factors in cholesterol levels

Memorable Quotes

"The research shows that statins are actually not saving lives. You see people with brain fog and memory lapses when they start on statins because these hormones are not being produced when cholesterol is not there."

"Cholesterol is the beginning of the creation of these hormones. We need cholesterol, but we need it in proper homeostasis. We need more of the good stuff, not so much the bad stuff."

"Get to know your body. For me, twice a day bowel movements is not enough. I know three times a day is when I feel great."

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The research shows that statins are actually not saving lives. You see people that the brain fog and the memory lapses when they start on statins because these are our hormones, like they're not being produced when cholesterol is not there, because. And when I say precursor, these hormones need cholesterol to be made.

That's it.

That's the cholesterol is the beginning of the creation of these hormones. So that is why we need cholesterol. But we need it in proper, again, homeostasis. We need it in good amounts. We need more of the good stuff, not so much the bad stuff. We need to be eating healthy fats.

Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility to Change that. I'm Dr. Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 9am for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life, this show is for you. Today I sat down with one of my practitioners, Tina, and we are breaking down cholesterol. What do you need to do to get a good look at your cholesterol? What do you actually need to test? What is causing that cholesterol to be elevated and how it pertains to fertility? We're also going to cover holistic treatments and why statins is not a good treatment approach when fertility is your goal. I can't wait to dive in with you, Tina. I'm so excited to connect with you again. Let's talk about cholesterol today. There's a lot of questions. Now that you've kind of been practicing with me and seeing some patients, there's some patterns that we're noticing. And so I'll say this about one of the couples and I think because that's a really good, like, preface of what a lot of people have no idea what cholesterol actually is. The good cholesterol versus the bad. When do we need to start paying attention? This couple that I just took on, they're very, like, health oriented. And when their cholesterol numbers came up high, they were like, oh, oh, that's not bad. I don't need to worry about it. My LDL cholesterol is a little bit on the high side, but you know, I'm healthy. Where they actually got the APO lipoproteins tested the apolipoprotein A and B and we'll talk about them. And their B's were low and the A's were high. The. And then HDL was okay, but triglycerides were on the higher side. And I was like, no, guys, like, this is bad cholesterol. You. This is absolutely a sign of inflammation. This is not something that we want to have in the system. And they had this just like look on their face, like, oh, damn. Like I didn't realize it. And then of course we see a lot of that in the fertility, one on one membership, whether it's the dudes or the ladies who just have high cholesterol and they're kind of just writing it off as it's not a big deal. And we know that it is. So I'd love to unpack that with you today.

Yeah, for sure. I think you know, the cholesterol, hdl, ldl, triglycerides, the great start. And I always tell people that is what would guide me to want to investigate further. Right. So hdl, I like to think of it as helpful. So it's the good cholesterol, LDL is the bad cholesterol. And then triglycerides. We don't want high triglycerides. At the worst, like, no, bad. So what I always say is if we're seeing total cholesterol high, hdl, low, triglycerides high, then I would suggest doing a further investigation like the APO AB gold standard, which is really hard to get for some people unless, you know, we can order through us. But the NMR is a really great comprehensive cholesterol profile.

I say, what does it stand for?

Neuromagnetic resonance, something like that.

But it tests like everything.

It tests the buoyancy of the particles, the size of the particles, the stickiness of the particles. All of that is important because you can have a lot of LDL cholesterol, but it could be like really buoyant and big and fluffy and. And that's not going. And that's not going to cause as many problems, like really small and sticky.

Right.

If you think about any partic sticky in the blood, that's going to be more problematic. So that is really ideal. But if you can't get that, there are ways to look at the standard blood work that you are able to get and determine your insulin resistance. For example, you can, if you only have HDL and triglycerides, you can do the triglycerides to HDL ratio. Okay. And basically you divide one into the other. If it's two or under, you have excellent insulin sensitivity. We want insulin sensitivity, we don't want insulin resistance resistance.

You're dividing HDL by triglycerides or the other way around?

The other way around.

Triglycerides by HDL.

Great.

And so anything above 2 is good. Yeah.

And you know, majority of people, their triglycerides will be higher than hdl. But if you're an anomaly and your HDL is higher than triglycerides. Excellent. Right. Because then you're going to come in under one. If you're above two, you need to start paying attention. And if you're above 5, you need to make immediate changes. You are definitely far along in your insulin resistance. Right. And that means, you know, the cells are resistant to insulin. We need insulin to be functioning properly with appropriate amounts of insulin. Insulin is actually anti inflammatory, but when we have too much, then it becomes inflammatory to the system.

Everything in the body is a balance. That's right. I think we start to fear things. Like we start to fear cholesterol and then the couple that I was talking about like, oh no, I shouldn't fear it. Well, it is very much a balance. Just like iron is a really great example. I mean any nutrient, if you have too little or if you have too much, the, it's disrupts the homeostasis, the balance that the body needs. And so that's the same for literally everything.

Yeah, it's the same with blood sugar. Right. We don't want blood sugar too high, but we don't want it too low because that's also a problem. We want it to look, it's the one time that we want like a flat line and it's not problematic.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. The flatter the better.

Means you're kicking row. Well, if you're able to get a fasting insulin, you can actually go online. Most doctors are doing fasting blood sugar without question. Not all are doing fasting insulin. And fasting insulin is more of a long standing prediction for resistance. Whereas blood sugar is like in this moment right now, this is what you're dealing with. But if you can get both, you can actually go online. And there's homa, which we test HOMA with our patients, but there are calculators where you can plug in your fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin and see where you're at on that scale of insulin resistance. So 0.5 to 1.4 looks good. Greater than 1.9. Some early insulin resistance. Greater than 2.9 year far along.

Yes. And so homa, I kind of explain it as HbA1c is a measurement for blood sugar dysregulation or blood sugar. You know, how you're balancing blood sugar over the last three months, what the fluctuations have been, whereas homa is the same but for insulin. And it does tend to give us early detection of insulin resistance. Now, I think the question that most people have is what do triglycerides and what does cholesterol have to do with insulin resistance? Because I'm not sure people are making that connection.

Yeah. So triglycerides and this is where people are like fat phobic or scared to eat fat. I had a client who, her cholesterol is really, really bad. We did a full NMR profile. Horrible cholesterol. And she's like, should I stop putting coconut oil in my coffee in the morning? I'm like, no, it's the 80 grams of carbohydrates in your lunch. And people don't, people don't know that. But the triglycerides are very much connected to blood sugar because it is carbohydrates that are driving those values up, not those healthy fats that you should be consuming. It's not that little bit of coconut oil in your coffee. It's the way that society has gone where we talk about like bowls of fruit on their own are fantastic. And grabbing that like really carb heavy protein bar as you're running out the door and the pastas and things like that, that's what's driving up the triglycerides and the blood sugar. They are connected because eventually we're really. Majority of society is very sedentary. So when insulin tries to draw glucose into the muscle, the muscle's like, no, like, I don't have room for you, I don't need you because you're not going to use me. And then it goes to fat cells and fat cells welcome it in. And that's where we see these elevations.

Yeah. And I always say triglyceride is like as a molecule, it's one fat and three sugars. So the sugar is way more prominent in the triglyceride than the, you know, than the fat. And to your point, the first thing that I thought about is it when we say things like fruit, like absolutely. Eating processed foods. Absolutely. Alcohol, because that's essentially a sugar you're going to see a RA in those triglycerides and even the ldl. But even things for some people are like fruit. So when I did my own cgm, the continuous glucose monitor, I realized how reactive I was to fruit. Even if I ate it after a meal, if I ate it before a meal, like, it was a complete disaster versus after a meal, it would just spike a little bit. The other thing, when you said pasta, and I'm like, most of us don't realize how much is a serving. And so if you've ever tracked your macros, you're supposed to have like a quarter cup of rice or half a cup of rice as opposed to one to two cups, which is essentially a huge, you know, carbohydrate mess for the body who, like, if you're not exercising, like you said, the muscle isn't using it, so it has nowhere to go. And you've just consumed enough carbohydrates to run a marathon. And you're not doing that.

That's right. People would probably laugh if they saw my lunch. I put 50 grams of rice. Like, if you've never looked at what, 50. Because people are just used to, like.

These platters, 10 grains. But people are used to, like, these platters of pasta.

And it's. That's not how we should be consuming those grains and those carbohydrates.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So essentially we're talking about identifying the cholesterol. Talk to me a little bit about the apolipoproteins, what they are, the A and B. And. Because sometimes we don't have the ability to test the deeper things, like you said, the NMR or the homa. But most docs, I find, will test now the apolipoprotein B and A, because if we just test ldl, HDL and triglycerides, and then usually they do the ratio to LDL and HDL where it's not enough information. And so we don't want to freak out when we look at that data. It's usually a sign that we need to do more. In apo. Lipoproteins are like, the first thing I'd say that most people do, including the blood sugar regulation, because blood sugar and triglycerides or bad cholesterol is going to go hand in hand. Yeah.

So apo A and B are the particles that ride on the LDL and hdl, and those are more important. I've said this, I believe in office hours where the LDL and HDL are like, measuring the Number of passengers in the vehicles in a traffic report. Whereas those particles on that, those cholesterol, is actually the number of cars on the road in a traffic report. So one is giving you much more accurate information. And that's why I say, sure, ldl, hl, Great start. But we need to investigate further. If we see values that are off when we're looking at that.

Yep. Yeah. I love that when you said that, I was like, oh, my God, that's genius. Because it's like, who cares how many cars are in? And this is where the couple that I introduced, they were like, that's the methodology of like, well, I don't care how many car passengers are in the car. And that's right. But, you know, what I brought to their attention is like, yeah, you do have too many cars, though.

Too many cars on the road.

Yeah, you do have too many cars on the road. Like, there's too many passengers, but there is actually too many cars as well.

Yeah.

Okay, and then let's talk about why cholesterol. So we're going to talk a little bit about treatment and all that, why it's important. How is it impacting fertility? How is it connected to hormone health, inflammation levels? And let's touch a little bit on both, you know, males and females, and then we will talk about other testing that we do to investigate further and then obviously some treatment options. Yeah.

So, you know, we see a lot of, or I have been seeing a lot in clinic of this cardiovascular inflammation. Right. And this is going to impact fertility because it's pointing to something deeper there. Like, why is there this cardiovascular inflammation going on that can be tied to an infection, pathogens that are present. Okay, so it's not just the food that's being consumed, but it's also what's being absorbed there, what's not. Because nutrient deficiencies can also lead to this cardiovascular inflammation. And when we look at fertility, that's not separate from general health and overall health. So if we're seeing this inflammation in the cardiovascular system, think blood, think veins, things are not flowing smoothly. How is your erection going to happen smoothly if blood flow isn't there? And how is sperm going to move through smoothly if everything is just stop, if there's all of this inflammation? And that's the same thing with the female. How is the egg going to move through? How is everything?

How are the nutrients even going to get to the egg so then it can grow? I have this patient right now with migraines and they have been so stubborn. And when I brought it up to Dr. Leah, my mentor, she was like, look into ovarian vascularization because she's getting the headaches the moment the follicle starts to grow. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's. And she does have a little bit of higher ldl. And right away, I envision these blood vessels that are just clogged and they can't get to the ovary. They can't get the nutrients to the ovary. And so she's showing up as poor ovarian reserve, or she's showing up as poor egg quality. But in reality, it's not that the egg is poor quality, it's that you're not getting the nutrients so that egg can actually grow and do. How is it going to grow if it's not getting the nutrients that it needs? And blood carries nutrients. That's right. Like that. And then detoxes. And so then it just kind of creates this mess. So, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, if we were all destined to be a product of our genetics, then I'd be in a lot of trouble, because nothing upstream is good. Yes. I think it's important to know what could be passed down to you, because, like you say, data drives compliance, knowledge drives compliance, and if I know what could be my reality, I'm gonna work damn hard to change that. So I think, and I see that with my patients who have this family history, and when I bring that to their attention, if they start to, like, sway away or not be too concerned about lab values, I'm like, you know, this is the reality of what could happen. They're like, oh, yeah, that's in my family. So I don't think we're destined to struggle the way our parents did, but I think we have to work a little harder to prevent it from happening.

For sure.

Yeah.

The epigenetics, it's like the environment turns on. Turns the gene either on or off. There's, of course, some things that I think are much deeper, and they'll take a lot longer to turn off, if you will. But, yeah. I look at my parents and my mom and my grandma, and I'm very much in line, like, very similar builds and things that they struggled with. I could see it, and I'm like, yeah, if I ate and I did certain things and whatever, I could totally see me being obese, having, you know, joint issues, having digestive issues, all that jazz. But I choose to do different things. And then I'm not scared or nervous. Like, there's zero part of me that's like, I'm not worried about getting cancer.

That's right.

You know what I mean? Like, that's just not a thing that I think about, and I think that there is some truth to that. Meaning that I know what I'm working on and I know what my body is, because I've done so much testing and so many things where I'm on the same page and my body doesn't have to scream at me and tell me, you know, send off all these yellow or red flags to let me know that something is wrong. Because I'm always listening, and I'm always, you know, tuning in as much as I can. Yeah.

I notice when things are off really quickly. Just yesterday, I think I was mentioning, I'm, like, a little bit acid Refluxy. That's not normal for me. And I like will pick up on it really quickly because I'm very much.

In versus having it for years. Yeah, yeah.

And that took some time to get to this place. But it's important.

Yep, totally. I know. I think it's a good reminder because I think when people meet us they just assume that like we've always been healthy and that's why it's important for us to share our stories. Because it's like I struggled with crazy IBS and crazy anxiety for most of my 20s. You know, this is why I became a naturopath because I'm like, if I don't solve this, I will have zero quality of life. Like I will never be able to find a partner that I can be free with and enjoy because I had so much shame. There's no way I would be able. I didn't think about kids at that time. But I'm like, I'm not going to be able to work out. I'm not going to be able to work. I'm not going to be able to help anybody because I'm so tied to this condition. And so it's so important to me to fix it. And obviously this is why we're talking about it. Now back to cholesterol. Yeah, the. It's just like it Usually we're just. There's a lot more that's going on here. But we're just going to talk about this one little thing. We talked about, you know, erection. We talked about ovarian blood flow. What about from a hormonal perspective? Why is cholesterol important and what kind of.

And this is why I think it kills both of us when we hear statins come up more. So I've noticed in our males, I've seen. But statins are still being prescribed rampantly and just based on that super antiquated like total cholesterol, ldl, hdl, which is so concerning because it shuts down cholesterol. And cholesterol is the precursor to our sex hormones.

So by testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, dhea. Like all those things that gives us life and purpose get shut down when cholesterol isn't present.

That's right. And the research shows that statins are actually not saving lives. You see people that the brain fog and the memory lapses when they start on statins because these are our hormones, like they're not being produced when cholesterol is not there because. And when I say precursor, these hormones need cholesterol to be made. That's it, that's the cholesterol is the beginning of the creation of these hormones. So that is why we need cholesterol, but we need it in proper, again, homeostasis. We need it in good amounts. We need more of the good stuff, not so much the bad stuff. We need to be eating healthy fats. Right. And decreasing, and this is, I guess, treatment stuff, but decreasing those processed foods, really starchy carbohydrates and things like that that are gonna add to excess glucose in the blood.

Yeah, I think statins, you have to be very careful in the fertility space, not only because of the component of the cholesterol. And usually so when I see someone with really terrible cholesterol numbers, like high triglycerides, high ldl, really low hdl, and you give someone a statin, the body doesn't go, or the statin doesn't go and say, I'm going to go and get rid of the triglyceride. It just kills all of it. And so if someone already has really low HDL and you bring that down even further, this is where you were. I mean, for hormones, it's anything from your sex drive to your mood to your brain fog, to the weight gain to depression, anxiety. You know, when women and even men come to us with hormonal imbalances like, they're a mess. But the other really big component is this CoQ10 depletion. And statins known to deplete CoQ10, which is Ubiquinol, which is mitochondrial function, which is essentially the foundation of fertility. I mean, it's the foundation of health in general. But the. What determines the quality of the egg is the number of mitochondria that that egg has. And so the lower the level of mitochondria, it is considered a poor quality egg or an aged oocyte. Whether you're old or not, it is considered age because that mitochondria levels are so low. And for men, I mean, mitochondria is. That's the thing that makes the heart swim. Right. And the head and the DNA. So when I hear that, it's one of the first things that I'll do is I'll pull people off statins. Obviously we do it in a safe and we know exactly what we're doing. We don't like, please don't just take statins off. And you need to do it with a professional that wants to get you off and knows how to do it. But yeah, that's one of the first thing I do, especially like men. Yes. But for women, it's crazy. I have women. It's so, like, with diminished ovarian reserve and she's on statins, and I'm like, you don't have diminished ovarian reserves. You. This medication is causing this, you know? Yeah.

Yes.

People just don't know.

Yeah. And we see the scary number and then we want to insult. Part of making this podcast is to give you guys a bit more empowerment so you can talk to your doctor. And if your doctor has no idea what you're talking about, or they're refusing to test apolipoproteins or really take a look at blood sugars and support you, I think the time and place that we are in is you have to demand and you have to ask for those questions. And if your doctor is not providing it, it's not that you're asking for the wrong thing, you're asking the wrong person, then you absolutely have to start seeking other health care. You deserve more. You need to know that's it. Like, bottom line, you know, I think we allowed really poor care for a really long time. And this is why we are in the mess that we are in, where people are genuinely sick and they go to the doctor and the doctor is still telling them that they're fine, because here's a medication for it. And here is, you know, the lifelong thing you're going to do and how you're going to pay the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of your life. There's so many more people waking up to it. And I'm at a place where I'm like, I'm not going to sugarcoat it anymore. Because it's like, you're sick, you're overweight, you're tired, you have no sex drive, you have. Do you know? Like, what are you talking about? Everything is normal. You know, at what point do we start speaking out?

That's right. And the sex drive thing, I'm like. Like, don't you want to. You know, and everybody that sits in front.

Not if you're tired.

Right. Everybody that sits in front of Us in clinic, you know, I'm like, what do you mean? Like you have never had libido as a male in your 20s. Like you didn't have libido. That's not normal. It can be common. It is not normal. Like many women struggle with libido, it's common, but that is not normal. There is something happening there and you need to stop accepting it as normal just because you're being looked at by your doctor and told that it is.

Right.

We want to see proper cholesterol, but also what are we doing with hormones? How do hormones look and how is cholesterol impacting hormones? We look at a stool analysis because pathogens, again, are showing up just like heavy metals and mold and things. That's going to be really important. So we basically are trying to understand what is taking energy from the body. Where is energy being moved in the body that is forcing other things to not have that attention?

Yeah. Reproductive system unfortunately gets. Is very low on the tadpole for the body because you can live without ovaries, you can live without, you know, uterus for really, like, for forever. Whereas a heart, you can't, you know, liver, you can't. And so the body has this order of priority that it's dealing with things. And when we can't get pregnant, it's typically because there's so many other things that are going on that the body is like, I don't. I'm in fight or flight. I don't feel safe. I have all these nutrients going over here to deal with the infection, to detox, to support the cardiovascular system, whatever. And it doesn't have the space to essentially put the nutrients towards the ovaries or the sperm production, whatever. It is really big connection with mold. I had some cardiovascular. Specialized cardiologists talk about heavy metals and mold. So you don't have to have both. You can have one, but the connection between that and cardiovascular inflammation is very, very big. So understanding why that cholesterol is high in the first place, obviously there's diet, but then there's the environmental toxin base and pathogens are huge. Yeah, yeah.

And that's why, you know, I just throwing a medication at it is not resolving anything. We need to understand what, like I said, where the energy in the body is going and why and what is driving that inflammation.

Yeah, I love that. Okay, let's talk about lowering the bad cholesterol, building up the good cholesterol. What do we do?

Yeah, so it's harder actually to build the good cholesterol, the hdl, but it's very easy to lower triglycerides, which is the bad stuff. So actually building up HDL is harder than lowering triglycerides. So the way that we're going to lower triglycerides, like we said, it's not about cutting out those good fats. We want to keep those in because those are going to contribute to hdl, which we want, but it's about cutting back on those highly processed foods, those really sugary. I mean, it's amazing to me how many people I see walking out of the store with like bottles of full sugar, Coca Cola, like cans of soda, that's 30 grams of just syrup, like straight sugar, things like that. Like even just cutting out, if you're having one of those a day, cutting out one of those a day is going to contribute to lowering triglycerides. When we look at fatty foods, the deep fried stuff, the seed oils, those are things that are going to drive inflammation, cardiovascular inflammation, and contribute to those triglycerides. In addition to the really high sugar foods, you could control or you could add in some fasting or I don't like to call it fasting necessarily, but just a shorter feeding window. So practice eating over eight hours and then give your digestive system a break for 16 hours by doing that. It's automatically kind of bringing people into a proper calorie consumption just by shortening that window. I think those are really great strategies. Something else to gather data, throw a CGM on and see how you're reacting to different foods. Because like you said, you know, fruit for you was a really big trigger. For me, I was wearing a CGM and chickpeas shot my blood sugar through the roof. I have a client who, I've mentioned her before, but like a handful of cherries, 10 cherries to be exact, brought her blood sugar up. And like I said, if the muscle says no, I don't want it, it's going to fat cells and that's going to contribute to these elevated triglycerides and that ratio between good and bad being.

Off, I think the CGM is probably the most valuable. So for those who are listening and you're like pretty deep into the health space, meaning you are, you don't already eat pop, you don't really eat, you don't drink pop, you don't eat processed foods, but you still have, whether it's you or your partner, you still have higher cholesterol. I think putting a CGM on is probably going to be the most eye opening thing I have. Again, the couple that I talked about at the beginning, he was starting to try the trend of only fruit before noon or raw honey. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure you're setting yourself like. And then we saw in six months his triglycerides actually increased. And so even though he was trying to do like, in theory, it's a nice idea that, oh, you're kind of fasting and you keep the fat burning state. Like whatever it is that they're, you know, talking about only eating fruit for the first half of the day. Maybe that works for some people. But when you get data on yourself, that's the time where you actually are gonna say, yes, this works for me or no, it doesn't. I had a couple who, it wasn't what they were eating, it was the proportions. So they would still have the tofu or they had like tofu and eggs in the morning, depending on the day with oatmeal. But they had like a cup of oatmeal and they weren't putting any like chia seeds or any fiber in it. And their blood sugar was skyrocketing to like 2:20, which is insane. So like over 150 is, you know, hey, you're going, it's too. I ideally want you at 120, like that's the highest peak. And ideally you're like in the 80s throughout the day, maybe like 90, a hundred when you're eating. And it was the volume of how much oatmeal they were eating and the fibers and so Then we incorporated flaxseed before they eat, they started eating the protein first and then they decreased the amount of oatmeal. So now it's a quarter cup. And all of a sudden their blood sugar was regulated, so it's a very different breakfast. And then now Instead of that 5.8 HBA1C, we can get it down to 5.0, which is much more ideal, you know.

Yeah. And I think it's important to mention that because I don't think we have to cut out an entire macronutrient. Carbohydrates are really great for mood, like serotonin and brain function and super muscle sparing. If I'm looking to build muscle, carbohydrates are really great for that. So I don't want to cut them out. But I think knowing how much your body can handle and that's going to change depending on your toxic load, how much muscle you're carrying and how much you're sleeping sensitive you are, how much you're sleeping.

Yes. Right.

So I think that data from the continuous glucose monitor is really great. And understanding that you don't have to go full blown keto, carbohydrates are good. Don't do that in the right amounts.

Yeah. I think the CGM from like a blood sugar perspective is probably one of the most important things that you can do. And then the second thing that comes to mind in terms of lowering is just fiber. You know, people always say, I'm eating. Oh, I think it's because I'm eating so much red meat and I'm like, I eat a bunch of red meat but my cholesterol is fine. And it's like, it's not what you're eating, it's what you're not eating, essentially, is how I see it. So if you don't have any cruciferous veggies or you have like one serving of veggies maybe a day and the rest is fruit, then number one, that puts you in the higher blood sugar category. But number two, you just don't have enough volume to empty efficiently. And the way that we get rid of cholesterol is through bowels. Every time you're pooping, you're getting rid of bad cholesterol. So I think people really underestimate fiber. But like, we get everyone to do flaxseed, we get everyone to start eating cruciferous veggies and all of a sudden they go, oh my God, I've never pooped so much. Yeah, that was just sitting in there. You Know, like, get it out.

Yeah. And get to know your body. Like, for me, twice a day bowel movements is not enough. Like, I have a really short torso. For me, I know, like three times a day you feel great or I am not happy.

Yeah. You feel bloated. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

So get to know your body. I mean, go back to the beginning, listen to the ratios I gave you, and go to your doctor and just start to advocate. And we talk about this all the time, especially in the fertility space. Like, if you're not advocating for yourself, you're going to want to start because you're going to have to advocate for that baby that you're working really hard to bring into the world.

Yep. For sure. You have to advocate a lot. I don't really want to cover a lot of supplements because it's so dependent on what's causing. Like, I'm very cautious to give supplement recommendation because what I hate is when people say, I've tried it and it didn't work. So the general is like, you're staying well hydrated, you're sleeping well, you're eating lots of fiber, get a CGM on you, get the blood sugar controlled. And then in terms of supplementation, this is where we do a lot of the testing. I want to know what your B vitamins are doing. I want to know what your inflammation is doing, what all your other minerals, what's going on in the gut. Do you even have the capacity to absorb these nutrients? A lot of people underestimate the basic things and how far they can take you. I rather you not chase the shiny thing and just focus on the basics and do that really well before you decide to try something that's gonna be a more of an investment, like supplements. And I'd rather you invest into lab testing before 100%.

Yeah, yeah.

Talk about building HDL. So building good cholesterol, you said it is a little bit more difficult to build versus to clear. What are some practices to build?

I think sticking with those healthy fats, I also think, and this is tough because I do have. I mean, I was vegan for five and a half years, and when I got into the functional space, they're like, well, you can maybe improve your health a little bit, but it's not going to be 100%. I think good animal protein is going to contribute to that HDL and just overall good cholesterol values. We do see, see cholesterol wonkiness and blood work with vegetarian. Well, more so vegan diets, but vegetarian as well, because Your sources of protein.

And fat are limited.

And your sources of protein are often primarily carbohydrate sources like your legumes and things like that. So I think those healthy fats, avocados, you know, nuts and seeds like you said, chia seeds, avocado, healthy oils, like good oils, good olive oil, things like that and then those really good sources of animal protein.

Yeah, when I think about HDL usually it's a double edged sword, like you're either not consuming enough, you're not absorbing it. So we have to look at gut function, we have to look at the consumption. I love running the nutrient panel that we run by the US Biotech because you could literally see what the person is consuming. So I have, you know, she was a vegetarian most of her life and you could see all the proteins that are missing, all the saturated fats that are essentially found in different types of animal fats. So whether it's beef tallow or lamb fat or duck fat or, you know, obviously there's the good things in coconut oil and avocado, but you could see that her body is missing it and then she has a lot of inflammation. And so it's this catch 22. The second piece of that is when there's a lot of inflammation in the body, you're going to use up the good cholesterol for it. The omega threes are going to go towards dealing with the inflammation. And so bringing inflammation down while supporting digestion is I would say like that's the foundation. And then I don't know if you know this, but I saw a study on HDL and how you can increase it by exercise. And so if you're not exercising that HDL for some people is never really going to get into optimal range. And I can't remember what the mechanism is.

Yeah, I was wondering what the mechanism.

Is, but it was just like, oh, if people are not moving their bodies enough and it's, I wonder if it has something to do with inflammation. And like essentially exercise increases inflammation short term, but long term obviously helps to support the muscle mass. But yeah, it's, I will take a look and see if I can remember the mechanism. But it's moving your body and exercising is really important for good cholesterol.

Yeah. And I'm wondering if it's because now you have more muscle to funnel that the blood sugar into so that it's not going into the fat cells and elevating triglycerides too.

I would say that's part of it for sure. Yep. Yeah. Anything else Tina, that we forgot about cholesterol, that you think people need to know.

I think an important one, and it's one that's become kind of popular and one that I've talked to you about and that I track, but is very genetic based. So I wouldn't try to put tons into this one marker. But the lp, I have a client, the client that, you know, the cherries threw off blood sugar quite a bit. Her LP can't get it down, but everything else has managed to come down. So LP Little A is a very sticky particle. It's very concerning, but it has a very big genetic component. So if you're struggling with this elevated lp, I wouldn't make that your primary focus. I would watch it, but I would make sure that you're seeing everything else. And this is where, you know that big picture. Right. And this is where we talk to in clinic. We're like, well, we can run two labs, but it's not giving us the best picture. And I think it's the same when we're looking at these individual markers. We need to see the big picture because some of these are driven by genetics. And we can control only what we can control over here.

Yep, totally. And I think it's. We all have a genetic predisposition to something. And if you have a predisposition to higher cholesterol, then, yes, you are absolutely going to notice an impact in that as soon as your diet is off or your stress is high or whatever. And so you do have to learn how to manage that. I think a lot of people then feel trapped, but I'm like, you're feeling trapped in, like, a healthy lifestyle, you know, what does that mean? You can have lots of freedom. Like, when I think about what I enjoy now is very different than what I used to enjoy even a year ago, or let alone five years or 10 years ago. And so I always say, be open to the fact that you might enjoy different things, and different things might bring you fulfillment and purpose outside of the processed foods or the alcohol or the whatever. Sometimes we're so afraid of letting that go because we have such a big attachment to it, you know, because of the. That it produces. What we challenge our patients to do all the time is like, hey, you're gonna be a different person and you're gonna enjoy different things and let that transformation happen, because that is who you need to become in order to be able to bring this baby into this world.

Yeah. And I think, I mean, I've competed and I've gone from, like, Coffee, black in competition. And the first time I'm like. But you get, you know, you drink it and you're like, oh, now I really like this. And the more you do something and become that person that you need to become, it just becomes norm.

So is it icky?

At the beginning, maybe.

Yep.

But then it just becomes who you are.

Yep. And I do say, like, you gotta spend time with people who are doing the same things as you.

Right.

Like, if you came and hung out with us for a week, like, if I went and hung out with Tina for a week, I can almost guarantee I would lift more.

Right.

Like, you just would. Because iron sharpens iron, and we talked a lot about that in the gym world, where you have to surround yourself. Like, if you want to be a competitive athlete, you have to surround yourself with other competitive athletes. Otherwise, you know, you're just. You're alone. You have no idea. There's not. It's a very real thing when you put yourself in the right environment. And so sometimes I'm like, hey, what would Dr. Jane do? What would Tina do? Imagine that. And then do those things because you'll see that the benefits will come.

Yeah, yeah, I say. I can't remember I had said it once, but yeah, you have to mourn the person you used to be and become the person that you envision.

For sure. There's a lot of grief in letting go, because sometimes, a lot of the times, it's also relationships that you have to let go. Right. Like friendships. And you might not get along with your family in the same way that you used to because you don't share the same values. And, like, that happens to me all the time. And it's almost like getting better. It's okay to let go because I know where I'm going, you know? All right, Tina, well, thank you so much for being here. I love connecting. We will connect again very soon. We'll pick another topic. We'll break it down. I know this was super valuable for people to understand cholesterol, what it really is, how to measure it, you know, how they can get a hold of it. Thank you so much for listening. To read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode. Visit drjanelevesque.com podcast and if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took 2 minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review@ratethispodcast.com Dr.Jane the reviews will help with the discoverability of the show. And who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. And let's make your fertility journey your healing journey.