After a very long run of predominantly animal-based (let's be honest, cow-based....), high-saturated fat diet (and the commensurate sky-high ApoB), I'm running an experiment: switch fat sources from animal/saturated, to MUFA (chicken, fish, olive oil, avocado, etc.) fairly strictly. no red meat, no butter, etc - but still copious amounts of fat (and protein). keeping everything else consistent - no sugar, low/no carb, whole, unprocessed foods, very low lactose, etc.
Repeating blood tests in 5 weeks. will be interesting to see how ApoB and HDL react.
Given that I'm keeping everything else consistent, I expect insulin resistance, inflammation and other metabolic markers to remain optimal, as they are now.
If ApoB and LDL drop back down (but particle size stays large) and all the other stuff stays good (inflammation stays low, energy levels and strength high, performance in general stays good, etc.) I'll probably conclude that balls-to-the-wall carnivore doesn't seem worth the risk/benefit.
Where "risk" means: sure, seems reasonable that high particle count may not be atherogenic given an otherwise optimal environment, but the jury is still out on that one and do you really want to be the site of the experiment?
In an ideal world, I _would_ like to be the site of the experiment... but only IF repeated CCTA scans were feasible and non-risky, in order to catch plaque formation as early as possible in order to "stop the experiment". the radiation involved in that probably outweighs the benefit of the visibility - nevermind the fact that it's fucking impossible to get a doctor to order a CCTA even when you are waving a cash-pay stack under their nose.