Lab Results - Baseline

Newcomer introductions, personal anecdotes, caregiver issues, lab results, and n=1 experimentation.
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Rob
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Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Rob »

Hi All,

Attached are my lab results (I've deleted some identifying information, except for date of birth). My girlfriend and I would like to make some lifestyle changes and I thought it'd be a good idea to get a baseline set of lab work done to compare against.

Background
I'm E4/4, both parents E4/4, and grandmother is E3/4 (all from 23andme). I got into reading up on health online around 2008 and have been off and on with applying what I've read since then - mostly various paleo diet principles as you'll see below, but I'm by no means "hardcore" anything. I've seen enough changes in sentiment with the "gurus" to not view things as black and white.

I'm not advocating any of this as "ideal" - this is just the way my life currently operates. Lots of room for improvement.

Lifestyle - Weekdays
Wake-up 5:30am, get cleaned up, have 1 Americano (black, nothing added)
Go to work (technical support related, 2/3 sit down job, 1/3 walking around)
I usually have black coffee or diet sodas throughout the workday
I always skip lunch, I don't snack
Get home around 4:30pm, workout every other day, do house chores (mow, work on anything broken), prep dinner
Girlfriend and I usually eat dinner while watching a show and I have a mixed drink (whiskey + diet soda)
After dinner I often get back on the computer (youtube, read blogs, pubmed, game) until bed time
Take supplements, do hygiene, go to bed at 9:30pm

Lifestyle - Weekends
Wake-up 7-7:30am, have breakfast (bacon, 4 eggs, 3 americanos), poke around the internet
Do house chores, run errands, workout, more computer
Prep/eat dinner in front of TV with a mixed drink
More computer time
Take supplements, do hygiene, go to bed around 9:30pm

Typical Meals
Weekdays - 1 meal a day and it's dinner, no snacking, any drinks are zero calorie/sugar
Weekends - breakfast is always bacon and 4 eggs with black coffee, then dinner, usually not hungry for lunch
Dinners - Paleo/Primal'ish - often baked porkchops, chicken breast, fish (white and fatty), ground beef, sometimes grilled steaks with vegetables (pan cooked in butter or olive oil, stir fry veggies, green beans, peas, brocolli and cauliflower) or salad. Starches (potato, squash, white rice) get worked in ~2-3 times / week. We generally avoid flours/breads at home.
Eating out - we eat out 0-2 / week depending on stress. Generally chips & queso, burgers, pizza
Snacks after dinner - 0-2 / week we eat a bag of chips after dinner while watching TV

Alcohol
5 times / week I'll have alcohol with and after dinner. Each night averages ~5 oz whiskey with a splash of diet soda
If we eat out and they have an extensive beer menu I'll get ~2 beers (anything not IPA)

Workouts
I have a rack/weights in the shed. I used to do mostly squat, bench, deadlift but due to time, I now do a circuit:
1 set: dumb bell curl to overhead press x 6, pushups x 15, barbell squat x 5
do 6 sets with as little rest in between as possible and keep increasing the weight as exercises get easier
I do not take protein supplements

Sleep
I sometimes (3 times / week) have a very hard time falling asleep due to my mind running in circles. Alcohol often helps with this but I pay for it the next day.
I'm in bed without electronic devices, i.e. trying to fall asleep, 8 hrs every night

Supplements/medication (all done before bed)
Resistant starch (Potato Starch): 28 grams (1 oz) in a little water
1 magnesium (250 mg) Calcium (150 mg) D3 (300 IU) Zinc (5 mg) combo pill
Folate (5-MTHF 800 mcg) B12 (methyl and adeno cobalamin 1,000 mcg) combined lozenge
1 Ibuprofen (200 mg) - I stopped taking this about 1 week before i got my bloodwork, but prior to that I was taking it nightly because I seemed to get better sleep (poor sleep likely due to the alcohol intake)

Chronic Health Issues
Canker Sores (not cold sores) - I've had these since I was a kid. Normally occur after any damage done to my mouth, e.g. hard chips, biting my lip or tongue on accident, acidic/sugary drinks or fruit juices. I've tried SLS free toothpaste, licorice extract, and Folate/B12 lozenges. The folate/B12 lozenge seems to be the only thing that helps, along with avoiding sugar and alcohol. If I get a canker sore it usually lasts ~3 weeks. I will get them every 1-2 months.

Stats
Age: 33
Gender: M
Ethnicity: White
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 152 lbs
BMI: 24.5

Select Lab Results (see attached for full report)
LDL-P: 1243 (High)
LDL-C: 147 (High)
HDL-C: 85
Total C: 247 (High)
Trigs: 74
LP-IR Score: < 25 (see report for specific subfractions)

Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy: 40.2
Lp(a): 4
CRP,hs: 1.01
Homocysteine: 11.8
Insulin: 3.95

Alkaline Phosphatase, S: 39 (Low)

TSH, T4, T3 Uptake, Free T4: all in normal ranges

Iron Bind. Cap.: 346
Iron, Serum: 38 (Low)
Iron Saturation: 11.0 (Low)

My Interpretation
LDL-P needs to get lower (as low as possible?). I assume this is caused by saturated fat (being E4/4) and maybe carb intake. I'm sure the alcohol doesn't help but I haven't seen anything about alcohol and LDL-P.

Total C, LDL-C, HDL-C, and trigs are all around what my parents' are. I'm not particularly concerned by these due to my other markers. My parents never got an NMR but as a comparison our basic lipids are:
TC / LDLC / HDLC / Trigs
Me: 247 / 147 / 85 / 74
Father: 262 / 169 / 81 / 59
Mother: 238 / 124 / 95 / 94

My trigs could be better - again, I assume it's because of bad food and alcohol. Some cardio would also likely help.
Subfractions - looks like I'm closer to the Pattern A and have higher insulin sensitivity in general
Vitamin D - I think I should get this a bit higher, maybe the 50-60 range. I wonder about the efficacy of supplemental D3 vs sun tanning
Lp(a) - yay, I guess I got lucky genetically, one less thing to worry about
CRP - not concerned with it being so close to 1, although I know as close to 0 is good
Homocysteine - This is high according to Bredesen. Need to ditch the alcohol and incorporate B6 vitamin with my folate and B12 to see try and get it down
Insulin - unsure, doesn't look bad based off the ranges I've seen from a google search but I assume lower is better

Alkaline Phosphatase, S - both my Dad's and mine is low - not sure what to make of this if anybody else has any ideas?

Iron - I guess I'm anemic, although I haven't noticed anything (possibly ridges on fingernails?). I need to do more research here. I might be better off that this is on the low side, being a male

Planned Lifestyle Changes:
  1. Lower alcohol intake across the board. Side note: both my grandmother and I enjoy it a little too much. My parents never drink.
  2. Less splurging when eating out - more salads, ditch chips & queso, pizza, etc.
  3. Migrate towards less saturated and more monounsaturated fats, carbohydrate intake is already pretty low
  4. Do some regular cardio
  5. Incorporate some more supplements to aid in sleep and decrease homocysteine
Tests: NMR LipoProfile w/IR Markers; CBC With Differential/Platelet; Comp. Metabolic Panel (14); Thyroid Panel With TSH; Iron and TIBC; Thyroxine (T4) Free, Direct, S; Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy; Lipoprotein (a); C-Reactive Protein, Cardiac; Homocyst(e)ine, Plasma; Lipase, Serum; Fibrinogen Activity; Insulin; Ferritin, Serum; Transferrin; Triiodothyronine,Free,Serum

Tests ordered through walkinlab.com, cost was around $600.
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Stavia
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Stavia »

hi Rob and welcome.
I only have time for two brief comments quickly
1. dont worry about the alk phos. Its a non-signifucant genetic variation.
2. you cannot use serum iron to determine body iron stores. its too variable in response to many factors. You need a ferritin. I doubt very much that you are iron deficient with your current diet. If you did a full blood count and have normal MCV this would confirm that you are likely iron replete, in the absence of a ferritin. edit: I see you ordered one, what is it?

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Rob
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Rob »

Hi Stavia,
MCV is 88 - normal
Ferritin, Serum 86.9 ng/mL - in the normal range
Transferrin 277 mg/dL - in normal range

Thank you for the input! Looks like I'm normal.
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Julie G
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Julie G »

Hi Rob! Kudos to you for being so proactive about your health at age 33. How fascinating that both of your parents are 4/4s. Do you have any siblings? How about a family history of either Alzheimer's or heart disease? You have an excellent handle on the biomarkers that need tweaking and appear to be headed in a generally helpful direction. I love your long daily fast. My guess is that will prove very helpful in continued optimization of your health. IMHO, you're a role model for your generation of E4 carriers. Keep up the great work.
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SusanJ
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by SusanJ »

Hey Rob, good job so far! It's great you're tackling this now.

Homocysteine is usually a B vitamin thing, but if you don't see results, let us know and we can suggest other methods. Have you done 23andme? You can run it through various programs like Genetic Genie or Promethease to see if there are other methylation issues and fine tune your approach.

And having been in computers since 1976 (yes, I'm an old-timer), I might suggest a night or two a week away from social media. I ended up with some pretty bad repetitive stress injuries after about 20 years of hard core computer use. Even with a good setup at work, we're just not meant to be at computers and small screens for extended hours. :geek:

Let us know how all the changes go!
Rob
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Rob »

Hi Juliegee!
re: parents being 4/4 - Finding this out about them was a bit unsettling. They're both fairly "fit" with my dad running half-marathons, marathons, and ultramarathons (I'm worried about too much stress on his heart). He also has a big sweet tooth, which rings an alarm bell in my head. My mom doesn't run as much as my dad but stays fairly active. Sometimes mom isn't as mentally sharp while socializing as I'd like, but I'm not sure if it's been a decline or I'm just paying more attention to it now. I'm shocked their doctor didn't want them both on statins with their cholesterol numbers but apparently the doctor said it was because that was the only thing he saw that was out of whack and was okay with them staying off. Both are 60.

re: siblings - I have one sister who is one year younger then me. She's had anxiety/bipolar issues since she was a teenager and just started to get medication for it in her late 20's. I'm sure there are nutrition and lifestyle factors that would help her, but it's hard to offer her any advice.

re: family history - my maternal grandfather died of heart disease at the age of ~40 (I think - very young), but he was a smoker and had an extremely stressful life. My paternal grandfather died of heart disease at ~65 in the mid 1980's. One grandma died of smoking/cancer in her late 70's and my other grandmother is still alive at 85 and doing alright, but my mom says she is more and more worried about her. I don't believe we've had a family history of AD. Just issues with cancer due to smoking and diabetes in other blood-related family members. Although, maybe we all kicked the bucket due to heart disease or cancer before it got that far.

I've got a long ways to go on actually doing everything I know I "ought" to do, but I'll get there, eventually. I'd like to do a kitchen-sink approach and re-test. Depending on the direction of the tests I'd start to make smaller changes and retest. We'll see what happens!

Thank you for the comments!
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Rob
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by Rob »

Hi Susan!
re: homocysteine - Yep, I was going to try adding B6 because I'm already taking folate and b12 (this: https://www.seekinghealth.com/active-b1 ... 0-lozenges ). I think it's just the B6 that I was missing. I need to brush up on the pathways more, there might have been a few other things I need to look at to lower this marker.

re: genetic testing - I've done 23andme, along with both parents and grandmother. I ran them all through Promethease. I also ran mine through genetic genie methylation profile. The only ones that came back "Red" were VDR Taq and MAO A R297R. The rest are yellow/green. It's been awhile since I looked at it. It seems like everybody has some sort of methylation problem so I haven't focused too much on it to be honest. I should re-look at it.

re: computers - Haha, yea - I know the sitting down in front of them so much isn't a good idea. I'm not that big into social media, but I've been watching too many health related videos/interviews on youtube and a few on vimeo. All I'm really finding out is how little we really know, and I'm becoming more and more skeptical of some people. Thank you for the advice/reminder! I know I should get away from them more - it's just so hard sometimes, lol.
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SusanJ
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Re: Lab Results - Baseline

Post by SusanJ »

If you want to dive deeper into methylation, try our wiki. https://wiki.apoe4.info/wiki/Methylation
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