We haven’t covered lipids yet in the blood chem unit but curious if you have protocol for decreasing LDL particle number in a 62-year-old male patient following Paleo template diet. Lab values: total cholesterol, 266; HDL, 77; triglycerides, 78; LDL, 173; LDL particle number, 1,879; gut test pending; DUTCH, high nighttime cortisol and cortisone, low testosterone, high estrogen.

Chris Kresser:  Yeah, so hang tight. We’re going to go into detail on that in the lipid section of blood chem. But I’ll tell you that generally with dyslipidemia and high LDL particle number, I address all of the underlying causes first before I do anything specific for LDL particle number. And often if I address metabolic health if that’s an issue—it’s not always, sometimes it’s just pure hypercholesterolemia, poor thyroid function, gut issues, environmental toxins, HPA axis dysregulation—we can see 20, 30 percent drop and even more sometimes in LDL particle number. And then from there, if LDL particle number is still high, then there are specific nutrient-based protocols that you can use to bring it down, and we’ll talk about those in the lipid unit.