{"id":5566,"date":"2026-10-03T15:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conneqthealth.com\/insights\/?p=5566"},"modified":"2026-10-03T15:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T15:23:33","slug":"how-to-lower-apob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conneqthealth.com\/insights\/how-to-lower-apob\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Lowered My ApoB by 28% and My LDL-C by 44% in Seven Months"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My ApoB came back high, even though I’m fit. I decided to treat it as feedback and changed what I could control. Here’s what worked, what I added later, and where the number landed.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In a Heartbeat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The result:<\/strong> From December to July, my ApoB dropped from 110 to 79 mg\/dL, a 28% reduction, and my LDL-C fell 44%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What moved it:<\/strong> Lifestyle first: less saturated fat, different protein sources, 40+ grams of fiber a day, and fueling my training properly. Then<\/em> my cardiologist added a medication (ezetimibe).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The honest part:<\/strong> Lifestyle was already working before the medication. Adding it accelerated the result,<\/strong> though I can’t say exactly how much came from each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The takeaway:<\/strong> It’s not lifestyle versus medication. Track the number, work the fundamentals first, add a tool when it helps, and keep measuring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Back in February, I wrote about something in my bloodwork that surprised me: my ApoB level, one of the most important blood biomarkers for assessing cardiovascular risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was high, even though I’m fit. So I set out to answer a question a lot of people are asking: how to lower ApoB when you’re already doing most things right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since publishing that article, I’ve had quite a few emails and messages from people asking essentially the same questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened? Where is your ApoB now? Did the changes you made actually work? And what did you do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is the follow-up. And the result surprised me even further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first wrote about this<\/a>, I was 62, lean (10-11% body fat), metabolically pretty healthy and training most days of the week. My triglycerides were 48 mg\/dL, HDL was 86 mg\/dL, inflammation was low, insulin sensitivity was good and my Lp(a) was low. Good by most standards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my LDL-C was 154 mg\/dL and, more importantly, my ApoB was 110 mg\/dL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the disconnect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By most conventional measures, I looked healthy. But ApoB was telling me something different: I had more atherogenic lipoprotein particles circulating in my blood than I wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could have rationalized the number because I was fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, I decided to treat it as feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I set out to do to lower my ApoB<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In that original article, I laid out what I intended to do about it. Rather than immediately assuming I needed a pharmaceutical intervention, I wanted to first see how far I could move the numbers by really leaning into the things I could control: diet, supplementation, fueling, recovery and lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, I wasn’t trying to conduct a perfectly controlled experiment. I wanted to make a series of evidence-based changes simultaneously, stay consistent with them, and then retest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My initial goal was a 10\u201325% reduction in ApoB, while maintaining my muscle, training capacity, endurance and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m now 63.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we have the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

December 15, 2025 \u2014 ApoB: 110 mg\/dL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 25, 2026 \u2014 ApoB: 101 mg\/dL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 20, 2026 \u2014 ApoB: 79 mg\/dL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s a reduction of 31 mg\/dL, or 28.2%, in approximately seven months.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And with a corresponding reduction in my LDL-C of 68 mg\/dL, or 44.2%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But there’s an important part of the story behind those three data points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this actually happened in two distinct phases.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second was lifestyle plus medication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that distinction is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phase One: Lifestyle was working<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Between my first blood test in December and my second test in March, I had been 100% focused on lifestyle, diet and supplementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hadn’t started a prescription lipid-lowering medication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By March, my ApoB had fallen from<\/strong> 110 to 101 mg\/dL, an 8.2% reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My LDL-C was also moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was important to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It demonstrated that the changes I’d made weren’t just theoretically good ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both ApoB and LDL-C were trending positively before medication entered the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that gave me a reason to keep doing what I was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phase Two: Then my cardiologist suggested we supercharge it<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I reviewed the results with my cardiologist, her advice was essentially:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You’re doing all the right things, and it’s definitely helping. Why don’t we try adding some medication and see if we can supercharge the process?<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She suggested Zetia<\/strong><\/a> (<\/strong>ezetimibe)<\/strong>, which she viewed as a relatively straightforward addition with a generally favorable side-effect profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wasn’t medication being prescribed because lifestyle had failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was medication being added because lifestyle was already working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question became: What happens if I keep doing everything that’s working and add another evidence-based tool on top of it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So sometime after that March result, I started Zetia while continuing all of the dietary, supplement and lifestyle changes I had already made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s when the numbers really accelerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By July, my ApoB had fallen again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

101 \u2192 79 mg\/dL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the full period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

110 \u2192 101 \u2192 79 mg\/dL, a 28.2% reduction<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And my LDL-C ultimately fell by 44.2%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve stayed on Zetia since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for everyone who has emailed asking what happened, the most accurate short answer is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lifestyle moved the numbers in the right direction, and adding medication on top of that foundation supercharged the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be misleading for me to show a 28.2% reduction in ApoB and a 44.2% reduction in LDL-C and imply that I achieved all of it through food, supplements and exercise alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it would be equally wrong to conclude that lifestyle didn’t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both my ApoB and LDL-C were already improving before I started Zetia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what exactly did I change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. I dramatically reduced saturated fat<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This was probably the biggest dietary change I made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d spent the previous year deliberately increasing my protein intake to preserve muscle and support a high training load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that had also meant eating more red meat (mainly bison), more full-fat dairy and typically three or four whole eggs most mornings. And because of my training load, I felt like I had a lot of moral license<\/a> to eat a few treats now and then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individually, I don’t consider any of those foods inherently “bad.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue was the total dietary pattern and how my own physiology was responding to it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I changed the fat composition of my diet. Here’s what that looked like in practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n