Results in from my WellnessFX Blood Panel page

[Lars86]

Hey guys,

I haven't been active on here for a while, but am about 2.5 years into living Primally. Despite feeling pretty great on the whole, I decided it's time to get the behind the scenes story and have some blood work done.

My eating habits are pretty stable, with plenty of local eggs, meat and produce (with occasional conventional meats), big dinner salads most nights. I eat a fair amount of dairy, mostly local raw milk, and a good amount of organic store-bought half&half and yogurt. Luckily my digestion is good, because I love dairy! I'm around 6-7% BF, and have a number of athletic interests, so I don't watch my carb counts much. High carb days are usually from sweet potatoes, bananas, maybe rice noodles or sushi rice. Unplanned, intermittent fasts have become part of my routine. On days that I'm out the door early, I just have some coffee with H&H and maple syrup, then maybe no food until early afternoon. Sometimes it's breakfast, then nothing until a big late dinner. It feels good to get in touch with the feeling of actually being hungry again! I was packing snacks to bring with me during the day, and was in a constant state of being partially full. I'm not so sure continually throwing fresh food on top of partially digested food in your stomach is a great idea.

My supplementation has been pretty minimal lately. I take some 1000mg of C, and 5000-10000iu of D3 and 12-24mg of iodine most days. Though, within a couple weeks before my blood draw I did a couple days of high-dose D3 when I felt my body fighting something off. I'm not sure how big of an impact a pulse dose has on the levels checked here. I was taking Selenium, B2 and B3 as well, earlier in my iodine supplementation, but have tapered that back.

I'm waiting on my included consultation in a couple days, and would love any input from experienced members here. Is it weird that I was hoping for some type of nutrient deficiency? hahaha. I love having room to improve and something to work on!

Apo-B is the obvious outlier, but I'm not sure of the exact significance in the context of my lifestyle.

[Skrumpy]

Can't see the attachments yet (pending approval) but where was your starting point? I'm starting this journey myself and I'm a little nervous to try out IF (eventually) and go against CW that says I need to eat 5-6 times a day or my metabolism will tank. What does your weekly exercise routine look like?

[Lars86]

You'd think after being a member for this long, that I'd have enough cred to upload a picture or two... hahaha. Relinked them using Photobucket

[Lars86]

What do you mean by my starting point? Before going primal?
.
In my early 20's I smoked a pack a day, drank soda every day and ate a pretty S.A.D. Before finding the Primal Blueprint I had already axed soda, cut the vast majority of carbs and grains out, quit smoking, etc. Reading PB was the final piece to be done with grains and look more critically at other choices. I was already onboard with a lot of the concepts

I.F. should be well down the road in my opinion, if you're just starting out. You want to make sure that your body is kicking ass at burning fats before going there. But honestly, there's nothing to be worried about. Having a truly empty stomach for a few hours here in there is absolutely a natural state. Treating your stomach like a food disposal, constantly throwing scraps into it, is not natural. I can go climb rocks all afternoon fasted, so any metabolic fear-mongering falls pretty flat in my eyes.

I don't have a schedule, and prefer it that way. What I can tell you is that I "work out" FAR less than my athletic friends, but I wouldn't trade body composition (let alone cortisol levels) with any of them.

I rock climb, race motorcycles, slackline, do yoga, squats / deadlifts, mobilization/stretching/myofacial release, ring dips, etc, whenever the mood strikes, and take rest when I'm sore.

[yodiewan]

It's strange that your LDL-C and LDL-P/apoB are discordant (LDL-P and apoB are both markers for the number of LDL particles). You have only mildly elevated LDL-C, but your apo-B is well into the high range. Discordance of this type puts you into a high-risk category. Of course risk doesn't necessarily mean that something IS wrong, but it implies that there might be.

I am not an expert so I do not know what, if anything, you should change regarding your diet and lifestyle, but I can share my experience. Last June (6/2012), I had a NMR test. Total cholesterol =300, LDL-C=220, LDL-P>2000.

The latest cholesterol info says that elevated LDL-P is a risk factor for heart disease and athersclerosis regardless of anything else. So I wanted to try to improve my numbers. I did some digging and found lots of info from Chris Kresser and Chris Masterjohn about cholesterol and specifically the connection to thyroid function.

I started eating more carbs (and less fat naturally as my appetite for it was diminished) and ate a Brazil nut each day (for selenium) and seaweed a few times a week (for iodine). I had a standard cholesterol panel a few weeks ago (1/2013) and my total was down to 260 and LDL-C was down to 180 (~140 using the Iranian formula), so I am no longer worried, although my doctor still wants me to take a statin (I refuse after reading about all the side effects, especially for active people).

[Neckhammer]

Looks good!

I'd actually back off the vitamin D till it came down to the 40-60 range. I'm just a bit leery of those levels being higher than basically any levels found in nature including tropic and desert populations and such.

[peril]

Agree that the ApoB number is strange. Is it coincidence that it is the same as the LDL-C or has someone made a transcription error? I'd bet on the transcription error. Check with you provider.

And congratulations - your lipids fit the Friedewald formula exactly. Or maybe your LDL-C wasn't measured directly

[Lars86]

I had my consult today.

He said that the slightly elevated LDL-C (Direct), in the context of really low Triglycerides and high HDL-C, is not a concern.

He also said that the elevated Apo-B is a trend he is seeing in Paleo eaters. He didn't have concrete reason, but ventured that when the other cardiovascular markers are so good, blood cells live longer than they do in most people and this skews the count. That LDL-C count could very well be elevated by nice fluffy ones (it trends with low Trigs and high HDL). Next time I'll probably do a more advanced panel to see the whole cholesterol picture.

I'm going to have them look into the possibility of a transcription error too.

I'm debating whether to drop D all together for 6 months and see where I end up, or to do 5000iu every day. With how much sun I'll be getting this spring, I'm leaning towards the prior.

The low TSH, signifies that my Thyroid is slightly overactive. Since I naturally have a high metabolism, and have been supplementing a fairly high dose of iodine, this makes sense. I am going to cut my dosage in half and see where the trend goes.