I'm not a physician and my opinions on cholesterol deviate from widely accepted medical advice. BUT, while your total cholesterol has gone up I don't know that I would describe that as problematic (although the makers of Lipitor might be happy to write you a prescription). All of the other numbers show improvement: your triglycerides, which were already within a healthy range, actually dropped. The higher that number, the greater your risk of cardiovascular disease. It's my understanding that high total cholesterol by itself- when not accompanied by numbers in other categories that are classified as high risk- does not have any demonstrated link to higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Your HDL, or 'good' cholesterol, actually went up- another good thing.
All of these numbers bring me to an idea: I'd like to see a large scale study done on people who follow the Paleo diet after a diagnosis of high cholesterol or early cardiovascular disease . It's interesting that someone who follows a high fat, high protein diet would see an improvement in their metabolic profile after following a diet that seems to run counter to traditional medical advice. I'd like to see the interpretations of the numbers change and perhaps explore a new dialogue into how to manage and prevent lifestyle diseases. Despite all the medications and advances we have to treat these conditions, we aren't seeing better outcomes...which seems to indicate to me that we are somehow missing something.
A friend of mine pointed me to this website a few years back, I thought you might find it useful.
http://www.drbenkim.com/articles-cholesterol.html
