My Personal Blood tests (October 2022)
On the very last day of my weight loss journey (10/07/2022) I had my labs drawn. I wish I had had them drawn before I started the journey but to be honest I never expected to be successful this time around. It is a miracle that I have made it this far and by the grace of God I hope to be able to maintain this weight for the rest of my life.  Thank you for all your support and encouragement. 

I also wanted to share these lab tests with you and give you my thoughts on them (see the bottom of the page for the complete results). I intend to recheck them in 3 months to see how they have changed now that I have doubled by calorie intake. I intend to share those as well and do a comparison. 

Here are some of the highlights. See the attachment below for the complete report. These are fasting blood test results.
  1. Glucose: 71 (Expected 70-99). This is an ideal fasting blood glucose. Optimal glucose is below 85. 
  2. Insulin: <1 (Expected 2-20). This is the lowest possible fasting insulin level and the lowest I have ever seen. I believe that an ideal insulin level is <5 in people who do not have type 1 diabetes. This result indicates that I am very insulin sensitive and have no insulin resistance. This is ideal.
  3. Cholesterol. Total Cholesterol: 272 (Expected <200), Triglycerides: 55 (Expected <150) , HDL 59 (Expected >39), LDL 198 (Expected <100). The total cholesterol and LDL numbers are significantly elevated. Most doctors would recommend I take a statin cholesterol medicine. However, my triglyceride and HDL numbers are very good and my triglyceride/HDL ratio is ideal (<1). Some how does this all add up? This is a controversial opinion, but I don't think the evidence is clear that isolated elevated total cholesterol/LDL in the setting of a good HDL, low triglycerides, low insulin, and low blood sugar put me at increased cardiovascular risk. A subanalysis of the data in the "4S" study shows that my risk of coronary artery events with these results is very similar to someone taking a statin cholesterol medicine. See the chart below.  
  4. Testosterone: I have low testosterone with elevated sex hormone binding globulin. This is likely age related to some degree but many other factors could be contributing as well including malnutrition, stress, or elevated estradiol. I have lost a lot of weight very quickly so I suspect that body stress and malnutrition could be contributing to the elevated sex hormone binding globulin. I am curious how this will change after 3 months of normal eating and stabilization of my weight. 
  5. High sensitivity CRP: This test measures body inflammation. It is higher than I would like but still pretty solid. I did suffer a thigh injury just 2 days prior to the test so I am curious how this will change with no injuries and a stable weight. I would like this result to be as low as possible but considering the level of exercise I am doing I am sure there will always be some level of inflammation. 
Figure 1. Effect of simvastatin on event-free survival by subgroups defined by baseline HDL-C and triglyceride. Event-free survival was significantly lower in lipid triad patients receiving placebo (□) than in other treatment subgroups and improved more with simvastatin in lipid triad subgroup (▪) than subgroup with isolated LDL-C elevation (•, simvastatin; ○, placebo).