Whey Concentrate and Cholesterol, and BCAA que

[Swami]

Hi Jordan,

I'm aware that serum lipids and dietary cholesterol aren't all that strongly related. However, I have heard others make the case that a lot of cholesterol in the diet is, while not the worst thing, generally not a good idea, and this is from people who acknowledge the lack of blood lipid rise. I'm sorry but I forgot the exact arguments, as they were somewhat complex and at the time I didn't care, so I didn't put the work into totally understanding what I had read.

And whey concentrate seems to have a lot of cholesterol, and I rely on about 3 full shakes per day to hit my protein goals. I'm currently using isolate but was thinking of switching.

Any cause for concern?


Also, I've noticed BCAA's are not the cheapest of the supplements. What does one miss if one just uses a decent whey protein powder (they advertise as having decent BCAA content) 3 x's per day and eats a decent amount of meat?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hi Jordan,

I'm aware that serum lipids and dietary cholesterol aren't all that strongly related. However, I have heard others make the case that a lot of cholesterol in the diet is, while not the worst thing, generally not a good idea, and this is from people who acknowledge the lack of blood lipid rise. I'm sorry but I forgot the exact arguments, as they were somewhat complex and at the time I didn't care, so I didn't put the work into totally understanding what I had read.

And whey concentrate seems to have a lot of cholesterol, and I rely on about 3 full shakes per day to hit my protein goals. I'm currently using isolate but was thinking of switching.

Any cause for concern?

Not at all. Dietary cholesterol is benign unless there is a pre existing pathology (though I can't think of one that would respond to dietary cholesterol). I would challenge the people giving you an information to postulate a mechanism where in the context of an isocaloric, isomacronutrient diet but with differing levels of dietary cholesterol somehow unfavorably alters the internal milieu.

Also, I've noticed BCAA's are not the cheapest of the supplements. What does one miss if one just uses a decent whey protein powder (they advertise as having decent BCAA content) 3 x's per day and eats a decent amount of meat?

More muscle protein synthesis spikes, better muscle recovery, and possible improved efficiency of synthesizing some skeletal muscle proteins.

[Mike C]

Dietary cholesterol accounts for about 10-20%. I was able to drop my cholesterol numbers by about 50 PTs by switching protein powders from 60 mg/ serving to 5.

I'm trying that again currently (from 40 mg to 5). We'll see how the tests respond.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Source?

What went Down by 50 points? Did your weight change? Macros and cals were the same? We absorb less than half of dietary cholesterol and excrete over 3x as much as we absorb, not that it all gets esterified anyway.

[Mike C]

Weight stayed the same. Macros were pretty similar. Carbs might have been a bit higher.

What went down? Total cholesterol. 305 to 255. I'm at 310ish right now since I reverted to high cholesterol protein powder and gained 15 lbs or so.

Weight change has little effect on my personal numbers btw. I've had numbers stay the same despite 10-20 lbs differences in weight.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Total cholesterol cannot change without HDL, LDL, or VLDL changing...so what changed? Were you fasted for both?

[Caradoc]

I never bought into the dietary cholesterol thing myself. Until a few months ago. Now I'm not so sure

Last year I had bloodwork done, and my cholesterol was fine, not anything even worth consideration. Three months ago I had more bloodwork done and I'm in the "you're a walking heart attack" zone. That much change in 14 months. The only thing I had changed was starting SS and trying to hit my Protein macros with Muscle Milk. 6-8 shakes a day. At 70 mcg (mg) cholesterol per shake I was taking in about 450+ a day just in the shakes, not counting the rest of my diet. I had been doing that for about 3 months before the recent bloodwork. I've since stopped with the shakes for 3 months now, and will get another test in a week or two. We'll see if it changes.

I have some questions regarding shakes/macros but I'll put them somewhere else so I don't derail.

[Swami]

Thanks Jordan. While we're on the topic, I was with a friend yesterday it some supp store and the guy said the was to distinguish high quality whey vs poor quality was by looking at the cholesterol and sodium per serving. The more of those, the more "fillers" it has. Is this a valuable criteria to use or is the guy full of it?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Look guys, here's what I'm actually saying: If your weight/body fat/stress/etc. are not changing significantly then dietary cholesterol doesn't matter. On the other hand changes in LDL/HDL/tg's are affected by lots of things to a greater, in general, degree than dietary cholesterol.

For instance, if you have a low quality protein that happens to have some hydrogenated oil (or whatever chemical/"bad" thing you want in it) and you're taking a lot of it AND it has lots of cholesterol in it as well, what's making the change if your blood lipids do indeed change- the cholesterol in the shake or the other stuff?

Anyway, I'm not too geeked out on all this stuff because I don't think it matters very much. As far as protein quality, I judge it strictly by the amino acid profile and it not having lots of carbs, fat, glycine, or collagen in it.