A recent study has found that fasting before cholesterol test isn't required as the results vary minutely. The study was conducted by Canadian researchers. According to the researchers, a difference of just 2% is noticed among the patients taking cholesterol test after taking meal or while fasting.

NICE and the Joint British Societies have recommended that the cholesterol tests should be conducted after fasting. However, the findings of the study have contradicted with the recommendation of NICE and the Joint British Societies.

For the study, the researchers looked at the blood tests of 111,048 women and of 98,132 men. Mean levels of cholesterol subclasses were also analyzed by the researchers. During the study, it was found that if a patient fasts for more than eight hours then significant changes in the cholesterol tests could be seen in the levels of triglycerides and cholesterol. However, no significant variation in LDL-cholesterol levels was seen during the study.

While concluding the study, the authors said, "We found that fasting time showed little association with lipid subclass levels in a large community-based cohort. This finding suggests that fasting for routine lipid level determinations is largely unnecessary".