What actually lowered his cholesterol in ten weeks

In the first two parts of this series we read a man’s cholesterol properly, across time rather than in a single panicked snapshot, and we looked at how his genes shaped what his body was likely to need. This is the part people actually want. What did we do, and what happened.

His LDL dropped from 191.6 to 162.4 in about ten weeks. Nearly thirty points, with his triglycerides and his protective HDL both moving the right way at the same time.

Here is the before and after, the start of the work against ten weeks later.

The result did not come from one heroic change. It came from a handful of unglamorous ones, aimed well at how his particular body works. That aiming is the bit that matters, so let me walk through it.

The first change was reducing saturated fat, and for him that meant cheese specifically, which was quietly the biggest source in his week. This is the most reliable food lever there is for LDL. Cutting saturated fat lowers it consistently across the research, more so when what replaces it is something better rather than just less food.¹ We did not ban anything or turn it into a moral matter. We found where the saturated fat was actually concentrated and eased it down, which is a far smaller change to live with than cutting everything.

The second was fibre, increased steadily across the day, the vegetables, the wholegrains, the pulses. And then a specific, slightly more deliberate piece on top of it. Psyllium husk, around eight to ten grams in the evening before dinner. Psyllium is a soluble fibre that binds to bile in the gut, so the body has to draw on cholesterol from the blood to replace it, and at roughly that dose it lowers LDL by something in the region of seven percent on its own.² It is not dramatic, but it is dependable, and it stacks neatly on top of the food changes rather than replacing them.

The third piece was where his genes came in. Remember the variant that made his internal antioxidant system a little less efficient, and the one that slowed his glutathione-based clearing pathways. We added targeted support aimed precisely at those, for a defined stretch, with a plan to review rather than a habit to keep forever. I want to be honest about the weight these carried. The food and the fibre did the real lifting on the LDL number. The supplements were there to support the specific weak points his genetics had shown us, the oxidation and the clearing, which is exactly the kind of thing food alone is slower to reach. That is how I treat supplements generally. A tool fitted to a job, used for a while, then questioned.

Now the honest part, because a number going down is not the same as a job finished. Look again at the table. His LDL came down beautifully, but it landed back around where it had started the year, not below it. There is more to do, and ten weeks is a short window. What that movement tells us is that his body responds, that the levers are the right ones, and that the direction is good. It does not tell us he is done.

The GGT and CRP are quieter, supporting evidence rather than headlines. His GGT, a marker that tends to rise with liver strain and oxidative stress, stayed low and steady, ticking up only slightly and well within a calm range.³ His CRP, a measure of inflammation, stayed low throughout. Taken together they tell us the cholesterol movement was happening in a body that was not inflamed or under obvious strain underneath, which is reassuring context for everything else.

If there is one thing to take from the whole series, it is this. The number on the page was real, but it was never the whole story, and the answer was never a single trick. It was reading the full picture, understanding the particular body in front of me, and then making a few well-aimed, liveable changes and watching how he responded. No drama, no perfection, no overhaul of his entire life.

If your own cholesterol has come back high and the standard advice has not done much, that does not mean nothing will. It may just mean the plan has not yet been aimed at you. None of this replaces your doctor, and some people genuinely need medication alongside. But if you would like to understand what your own body is actually asking for, that is exactly the conversation I am here for.

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