Cholesterol test - fasting or not?

[aubergenie]

I just had my cholesterol tested at the doctors. The nurse was checking some of the results against a chart that said "fasting" on it. The thing is, I had just had my lunch. Should I have been told to fast beforehand or would it not make much difference?

Cholesterol tests are normally done fasting I think. Although there may of course be different types of test.

This explains it a bit.

Yes, I was told off when I had mine as I forgot and had a sarnie at midnight You have to fast for 6 hours.

That's what I thought. It was part of a more general health check and I didn't know they were going to test for cholesterol levels otherwise I would have asked.

It came out as slightly high, but I'm not sure whether the fasting/not fasting thing would make a big difference or not.

Thanks Norks. It sounds like the result will be wrong then. Bloody typical of my GP to set up a really good scheme like this and then do it wrong!

I mentioned it to the nurse at the time and she said, oh yes if you had the test done in hospital, they would ask you to fast.

sometimes fasting and sometimes not - depends why it is being done. Speak to your GP