People who forget to fast may be told to reschedule their appointments. For those who remember, sitting in a doctor's waiting room with a growling stomach can make for a rough start to the day.
Now a large new study shows that cholesterol levels aren't radically different in people who ate compared to those who fasted before their blood was drawn.
The study, which is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that people may not need to fast before they get a cholesterol test.
Experts who were not involved in the research called the results an eye-opener.
"This information is actually very, very interesting. It might change how we approach a patient," says Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Fasting and Cholesterol
For the study, researchers looked at the results of all the cholesterol tests processed at the same lab during a six-month stretch in 2011. Because the lab does all the testing for the entire city of Calgary, Canada, that amounted to test results for more than 200,000 people. Doctors also recorded how long it had been since the patient had last eaten.
When researchers broke down the results by fasting time, they found little change. Overall, total cholesterol and HDL "good" cholesterol varied by less than 2%, depending on when a person had last eaten. Total cholesterol and HDL are important because they are the main measures used to calculate a person's risk for heart-related events.
LDL "bad" cholesterol was less than 10% different in people who'd recently eaten compared to those who had been fasting for at least eight hours.
Triglycerides, or blood fats, were the most sensitive to food. They varied by no more than 20% between people who had fasted and those who had not.
Study Limitations
Because the study is just a snapshot in time, it has important limitations. It doesn't prove that cholesterol levels don't change significantly before and after a meal for individual patients.
Read more at: depkhoenews.com
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