Now, as the recent stuff on dietary cholesterol seems to be leaning to it not being all that important for healthy people (just that you shouldn’t really exist entirely on fatty stuff):

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002137.pub2/abstract;jsessionid=F661D77B6822FBB36972B2E090755D04.f04t03

I am wondering if adjusting your diet for a few days before a blood test could/would affect the readings. F’rinstance, if you et predominantly avocado, olive oil etc (non animal fats) for, say, a week before undergoing a test, is it likely your total, HDL, LDL, ratios etc would be different from if you et predominantly animal type fats for the week before? I’m not talking about gorging on fat, I’m talking about eating different types but in normal quantities.

I don’t quite know how to frame the search terms for PubMed to find if any research has been done on this. What sort of time period would need to be used? Would the readings be affected by just a day of “special eating”? Would they be affected at all?

It’s kind of tempting to do an experiment myself. I haven’t bothered with any blood tests for about 6 years now. I figure I should go the saturated fat diet first, and go for a test. Presuming that brought me in with something that afeared the doctor, I could then insist on trying diet first, and do the second leg with my preferred fats. I never feel particularly well on a saturated fat diet, although I do drink milk and eat butter. But we’ve cooked with olive oil for 30 years or so, and we eat avocado more than is natural. My readings at ages 40, 45 and 50 were quite Mediterranean.

poik – can you frame the search terms? You are usually very good at that.