I’ve been fighting my cholesterol for a couple of years at this point. This past summer, I lived in Italy for two months, ate whatever I wanted, and my cholesterol dropped by nearly 50% and my HA1C didn’t change. Below is the full story!

Background

Why even track your cholesterol and HA1C levels?

After I was diagnosed with methane-dominant SIBO (confirmed by FoodMarble) in my early 30s, I was motivated to find the root cause. I started paying attention to my bloodwork and discovered I had high cholesterol.

Not only was it possible that these were tied to SIBO, but I learned that these elevated levels, if not reduced, could cause many more health issues down the line.

That was just enough incentive for me to start owning my health data. First step was cleaning up my diet and increasing exercise. For a few years now, I have been conscious of what I have been eating.

As I have become more health conscious, I have noticed some talk of Europe having a better food system. I’ve been curious if the increased regulations in Europe around food production have any substantial effect on health. So, I decided to conduct my own experiment.

The Experiment

This summer, I spent two months in Italy and took my blood work before and after.

I made a conscious decision not to think about what I ate. This meant eating plenty of pasta, bread, cheese, and cured meats every day, along with almost-daily indulgences in gelato and dessert. I also had milk + coffee multiple times a day and significantly more wine (about ¼-½ liter every night). I walked a lot, averaging around 30,000 steps a day, but probably not too much more than I do at home (I have a treadmill desk at home where I probably walk a similar amount).

Here are some of the key changes I made:

• Diet:

  • More carbs (bread, pasta, etc.) compared to probably 30-40g of carbs/day at home,
  • desert (even more carbs!) every day (compared with desert 2x/month at home)
  • high-fat cheese at almost every meal
  • less meat (especially American meats like burgers and sausage)
  • more fish (mostly tuna)
  • less greens and fiber (Italians don’t eat salad)
  • less eggs (2-3/week vs 2/day)
  • no nuts
  • red wine every day (as opposed to once a week at home)
  • a lot more tomatoes and tomato-based sauces.

• Exercise:

  • No formal strength training, just a few pushups here and there (at home I strength training 2x/week)
  • a ton of walking

• Other Lifestyle Factors:

  • More sleep (8hrs/night vs 6.5 at home)
  • More time outside generally speaking
  • About the same stress level compared to home (still working, etc)

Blood Work Results:

• A1C: This didn’t change, which I found baffling. I was eating at least 10x the amount of carbs compared to my low-carb diet at home (probably 30-60g/day at home). Yet, despite all the bread and pasta, my A1C remained stable. I don’t understand how this could be possible.

• Cholesterol: Surprisingly, my cholesterol dropped significantly. This was very surprising to me. I have a specific gene (details below) that indicates that I can’t process saturated fat too well. My theory is that (a) fewer nuts and (b) fewer eggs were the primary drivers here.

  • I’m holding off on nuts + eggs now and will retest in a couple of months to see if my cholesterol levels are low.
  • Note that my cholesterol spiked up to these very high numbers after consuming the SIBO yogurt for 2mo. Without the SIBO yogurt the numbers were high (LDL-P at 1687) but the yogurt pushed the LDL-P to a peak of 2424 which is when I stopped taking it.
  • However, since 2016, I’ve never gotten my cholesterol levels to look this good.

Here’s the gene reported by 23andme that indicates I have trouble processing saturated fat:

I’m still confused about these two things:

• A1C Stability: Despite the carb overload, my A1C didn’t budge. I don’t understand this.
• Cholesterol Drop: This is still a mystery to me. While I did cut down on eggs, nuts, and "American meat" the increase in high-fat cheese consumption and cured meats should have had some effect. My guess is the higher food quality (and therefore better fats?) had an impact here. This is very curious to me.

I wanted to share this data point as I thought it was interesting in case others are struggling with their cholesterol.

With these surprising results from just two months of eating European food, I have become increasingly fascinated with the interception between our food system in the US and our increasing chronic health issues as a nation.

I’ve personally seen a notable increase in illness in my own circles: from food sensitivities to cancer, to thyroid issues, to autoimmune diseases, to infertility + so many other non-specific but highly invasive conditions. My wife, my extended family, and many of our friends have had a crazy number of chronic health conditions. I’ve watched how these non-specific conditions have sucked away the life of not just myself but many others. It is so clear that something is majorly wrong.

Throughout the past couple of years, I’ve become more convinced our food supply chain in the US is deeply broken (convinced of the Casey + Calley Means story, personal experience in Europe, slowly healing my chronic condition through food). In my search for the next business idea, I have moved away from pursuing AI-focused vertical SaaS to exploring more personally motivating opportunities in the health x food space.

There are many entry points within this sector. My ideas range from building a DPC-Focused EHR to creating a Chronic Health Solution Finder (crowdsourcing and validating personalized health experiments) to starting an e-commerce website for Italian-produced pantry staples.

While I am not yet sure how I am excited at the thought of being a part of the solution to the chronic health epidemic in the US. If you have any thoughts on how to solve this issue, I’d love to chat.