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 my 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). So 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).