low red blood cells / iron deficiency - advice needed
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:21 pm
Had some blood work done yesterday.
I started on a vegan diet about 6 weeks ago, after my cholesterol came out very high with the last testing. I am 45 years old, female, 5.8 tall, 130 pounds, 18% body fat, I thought I eat quite a healthy diet (obviously not) and I exercise about 5 -7 times a week (cardio and power yoga). For this reason I was very irritated when my cholesterol numbers appeared to be totally out of range. Total cholesterol was 260, LDL 160 and HDL 99. My doctor send my home saying "there is nothing to worry about, the numbers are a bit high but the LDL/HDL ratio is still pretty good and he told me to do nothing. Then I did some investigation in the internet, read all books I could get about diet and heart disease etc. and thought I need to change something! So I went on a plant based, whole food diet. I use very little oil and fat.
The good thing is after 6 weeks on a vegan diet my total cholesterol dropped almost 60 points from 260 to 200, LDL went down from almost 160 to 120 and unfortunately the "good" HDL also went down from 99 to 72. Having said that, it appears that my red blood cells are very, very low too. My doc thinks this is due to an iron deficiency (which I did not have before) and that I should go back to eating red meat 2-3 times per week - bummer! This is not what I want, because I am sure the Cholesterol will go up again, besides all the other negative effects of meat. Has anybody experienced this as well and do you have any ideas/suggestions beside supplements to avoid this? Thanks
I started on a vegan diet about 6 weeks ago, after my cholesterol came out very high with the last testing. I am 45 years old, female, 5.8 tall, 130 pounds, 18% body fat, I thought I eat quite a healthy diet (obviously not) and I exercise about 5 -7 times a week (cardio and power yoga). For this reason I was very irritated when my cholesterol numbers appeared to be totally out of range. Total cholesterol was 260, LDL 160 and HDL 99. My doctor send my home saying "there is nothing to worry about, the numbers are a bit high but the LDL/HDL ratio is still pretty good and he told me to do nothing. Then I did some investigation in the internet, read all books I could get about diet and heart disease etc. and thought I need to change something! So I went on a plant based, whole food diet. I use very little oil and fat.
The good thing is after 6 weeks on a vegan diet my total cholesterol dropped almost 60 points from 260 to 200, LDL went down from almost 160 to 120 and unfortunately the "good" HDL also went down from 99 to 72. Having said that, it appears that my red blood cells are very, very low too. My doc thinks this is due to an iron deficiency (which I did not have before) and that I should go back to eating red meat 2-3 times per week - bummer! This is not what I want, because I am sure the Cholesterol will go up again, besides all the other negative effects of meat. Has anybody experienced this as well and do you have any ideas/suggestions beside supplements to avoid this? Thanks