Lab Tests - Round One

Long time, no writing. It's not for lack of topics, but I promised to do an update on my own status and I just haven't been motivated.

I got my first round of lab tests back on September 16th and was told, "I don't usually see results this good, with one exception, that is." I'll get to the exception later, but first the good news.

My cholesterol was good at a total of 173--with 56 points of the healthy or HDL variety and 96 of the unfriendly LDL variety. My cholesterol/HDL ratio was 3.1, which is also good, as it should be under 5.0.

C-Reactive Protein, or c-RP, a measure of systemic inflammation, was less than 0.1 mg/dl. Again, this is good as levels should be less than 1.8 mg/dl.

My triglycerides were 104, another good score, since you want to be under 150 for these bad boys.

I had lots of nods re good liver and kidney function results. My vitamin D was at 51 pg/ml, which is high on the reference range (15-60 pg/ml), but still considered too low to avoid chronic disease. My friend, Dr. Hugo Rodier, recommends aiming for at least 80 pg/ml to reduce disease potential, including allergies. His advice? Boost my D3 to at least 2000 IU per day and think about going up to 10,000 IU of D3 daily (that's what Dr. Rodier himself takes).

The exception to my good news was that my body puts out too much insulin to address high sugar loading. I did the 2-hour fasting glucose test, whereby you fast, get a blood test, then go have a super high sugar lunch and return for a second blood test. I don't tend to go for big sugary meals, so I didn't enjoy that test and did feel lousy after sugar loading. I was asked about my relationship with sugar and blood sugar swings. I talked about being hypoglycemic in college.

The assessment? Situationally, I am pre-diabetic, meaning under stress and less than ideal diets, I can lean toward diabetic. Since I'm usually pretty careful with my diet, that tendency is not always so obvious.

The advice? Watch carbs and sugar (which I mostly do and am more careful now) and also take alpha lipoic acid at 600mg per day and cinnamon at a teaspoon a day.

If you follow any of this advice, take the alpha lipoic acid with a meal as 600mg is a lot of acid on an empty stomach, especially if you have a sensitive stomach.

Further recommendations for me? Boost my omega-3s to at least 2 grams daily (I am taking 3 grams) as they are critical to cellular membrane health in the eyes (germane to my problem with dry eyes) and add resveratrol (also good for preserving and enhancing vision), and introduce DHEA at 10mg per day for adrenal support.

If you follow the link to DHEA at our company, please note that our DHEA is 25mg (designed more for men and post-menopausal women). This means I'll be chopping our DHEA pills in half and leaving crumbs behind, just like the asthma pill we have to chop up and give to our small (7 pound) cat, Diva.

Regarding the resveratrol, we'll have this in stock by the New Year in a formula called Immune Health (the new formula will also have beta glucans, n-acetyl-cysteine, quercetin, elderberry, and green tea).

So, for round one of testing, my results were pretty good. The problem is that I haven't felt as robustly well as my test results would lead one to believe.