{"id":1132,"date":"2017-10-12T09:43:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T16:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2017-10-12T11:47:22","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T18:47:22","slug":"blood-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/blood-pool\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood Pool &#8211; Reader Contributed Test Results"},"content":{"rendered":"<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse;\" border=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"\" \/> <\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"right\" width=\"\" height=\"\">\n<h5 style=\"text-align: left;\">Note from Dave&#8211;<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I&#8217;m so happy this work by <a href=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/author\/tigris\/\">Craig<\/a> is finally going up on the site. There was an extraordinary amount of work put into this post, not just in the writing and visuals, but in the meticulous effort he has put forth in mining all the data throughout the site. Extra thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/exceleratorbi.com.au\/\">Matt&#8217;s<\/a> amazing contribution as well in processing and developing the data set.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><b><br \/>\nIntroduction<\/b><\/h1>\n<p class=\"p1\">Readers of this blog often share the results of their test results in comments, tweets, and emails. I\u2019ve been collecting and labeling these into a dataset.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>This article presents a summary of the nearly 200 data points extracted from the comments through October 1st.<\/p>\n<p>Special thanks to Matt Allington who put together the interactive visualizations for this post.\u00a0 Matt is a Power BI reporting professional (and LCHF advocate) at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/exceleratorbi.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/exceleratorbi.com.au&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1507719689723000&amp;usg=AFQjCNElcuAvejt0Ltkpp8Ch4FLoqy6y6A\">http:\/\/exceleratorbi.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Lipid Scores<\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">Looking through the comment history, I found the most consistently reported metrics were those from a basic lipid panel:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p1\">Total Cholesterol (TC),<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">Triglycerides (TG),<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C)<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">Low-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL-C)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\">What\u2019s great about this quartet is you can use the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpnotebook.co.uk\/simplepage.cfm?ID=x20030114211535665170\">Friedwald equation<\/a> to verify their consistency or to interpolate the missing fourth score, if not provided.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Units are also easy to detect and convert.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The most commonly used units are mg\/dL in America and mmol\/L in Europe.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>I made a heuristic to guess the units based on their range, and converted everything to mg\/dL for display purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Other test results were much less common. These included particle counts (HDL-p, LDL-p), glucose, HbA1C. See my\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/lab-testing\/\">previous post<\/a>\u00a0for recommendations on the best tests to get.<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><b>The Data<\/b><\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Caveats<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>I recommend reading any study or presentation of health data with a grain of salt. In this case, take two:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">1. <strong>Bias<\/strong> &#8211; These data were self-reported, not scientifically sampled. I would suspect that most readers found this site <em><strong>after<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0switching their diet to LCHF, and probably <strong><em>after<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0getting a high cholesterol score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">2. <strong>Accuracy<\/strong> &#8211; This data is not independently verified. In very few cases have I actually seen the corresponding Labcorp\/Quest report. Contributors may also have misremembered or made a typographic error when submitting their comment.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Summary<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s are the results:<\/p>\n<table class=\"t1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\"><\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>N<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>TC<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>TG<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>HDL<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>LDL<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\"><strong>TG\/HDL<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\">Standard<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">34<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">222.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">104.8<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">62.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">139.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">2.2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\">LCHF<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">134<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">330.9<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">94.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">76.4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">234.9<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">1.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\">Zerocarb<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">530.0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">120.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">81.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">424.0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">1.7<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p4\">Fasting<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">4<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">329.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">152.3<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">46.5<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">253.0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"td1\" valign=\"middle\">\n<p class=\"p5\">3.6<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Commenters on CholesterolCode.com reported an <em>increase<\/em> of 95\u00a0mg\/dL LDL-C on LCHF compared to a standard diet. This makes intuitive sense, since the primary job of the lipid system is to deliver TG energy, and LCHF uses more energy from fat, so you&#8217;d expect more &#8220;boats&#8221; in the blood.<\/p>\n<p>However, due to increased HDL and decreased TG, their reported TG\/HDL ratio decreased by 0.8. Although most doctors will panic about 100 points of LDL-C, TG\/HDL is a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FatEmperor\/status\/918228971959054336\">much better<\/a> metric. So just judging from this data, on average LCHF dieters are at <em><strong>lower risk of CVD<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>than standard dieters.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>HDL versus LDL<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the scatterplot of LDL and HDL, interactive link <a href=\"https:\/\/app.powerbi.com\/view?r=eyJrIjoiOWQyNGE0ZmItZTBmNi00NDFmLWFiMzctYWE3ZTUzNDg0MWMyIiwidCI6IjZmMGU5YzQyLTk2Y2UtNDU1MS05NzAxLWJhMzFkMGQ2ZDE5ZSJ9&amp;pageName=ReportSection43065ae513166cc93c05\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1152 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.26.54-AM-300x273.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"486\" height=\"442\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.26.54-AM-300x273.png 300w, https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.26.54-AM.png 729w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 486px) 100vw, 486px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this chart you can clearly see the increased LDL for LCHF (black dots) compared to Standard (red dots). The gain in HDL is visible too, but less obvious. Although there are only 3 data points, Zerocarb (yellow dots) stands out for having among the highest LDL.<\/p>\n<h2>HDL versus TG<\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the scatterplot of HDL and TG, interactive link <a href=\"https:\/\/app.powerbi.com\/view?r=eyJrIjoiOWQyNGE0ZmItZTBmNi00NDFmLWFiMzctYWE3ZTUzNDg0MWMyIiwidCI6IjZmMGU5YzQyLTk2Y2UtNDU1MS05NzAxLWJhMzFkMGQ2ZDE5ZSJ9&amp;pageName=ReportSection8366a16044992220679c\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1154 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.36.34-AM-300x267.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.36.34-AM-300x267.png 300w, https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-10-at-8.36.34-AM.png 748w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this chart, you see the <a href=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/are-you-a-lean-mass-hyper-responder\/\">LMHR<\/a>\u00a0cluster (LCHF in black) in the &lt;100 TG, &gt;100 HDL zone. I&#8217;d be most concerned about the health of the cluster of in the 200 TG, &lt;50 HDL zone (mostly Standard diet in red).<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><b>How to Contribute<\/b><\/h1>\n<p>Want to have <em>your<\/em> data included in the next version of this post? Glad to have you onboard, citizen scientist!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The easiest way is to post a comment to this blog (on this or any article).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>In the content, include the 4 numbers of <strong>TC, TG, HDL, and LDL<\/strong> keeping the same units. Also, include whatever context is relevant, but be sure to include <strong>your diet<\/strong>. \u00a0Here&#8217;s a sample:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;ve been on a low-carb, high-fat diet for the past 12 months. \u00a0Here are the results from my most recent labs from September 2017.<\/p>\n<p>TC 350<\/p>\n<p>TG 100<\/p>\n<p>HDL 80<\/p>\n<p>LDL 250<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you also happen to have results from your previous diet, we&#8217;re excited to see the change. Just include the old numbers and context in a second block, similar to the first.<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\"><b>The Nitty Gritty<\/b><\/h1>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Labels<\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">I used the context of the comment thread to try to assign labels to each data point. I wanted to know the the diet, lifestyle, exercise, date, and any other commonly-reported factors that might influence the results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The primary label I consistently applied is the diet.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Here, I assigned to one of 4 mutually exclusive categories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Standard<\/b> &#8211; Broad category of diets that follow the food pyramid\u2019s advice to emphasize \u201cfruits, veggies, and low-fat dairy\u201d. Typically &lt;30% of calories from fat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>LCHF<\/b> &#8211; Broad category of diets that limit carbs and embrace fat. Typically &gt;50% of calories from fat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Zerocarb<\/b> &#8211; All-animal product carnivorous diet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Fasting<\/b> &#8211; Any fast of 3 or more days leading up to the test.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I noted other labels, but their reporting was more <em>ad hoc<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Duration<\/b> &#8211; When available, I added a duration as a qualifier to their primary diet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Exercise<\/b> &#8211; Anything from endurance, strength, high-intensity intervals, to vigorous walking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>IF<\/b> &#8211; Intermittent fasting. Any form of time-restricted eating including 16:8, one-meal-a-day, alternate day, etc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Test &lt;X&gt;<\/b> &#8211; To distinguish multiple tests in a simple post.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Typically X will be a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Losing Weight<\/b> &#8211; If the contributor reported a period of weight loss during this test.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Lowcal<\/b> &#8211; The contributor reported lower-than-usual eating leading up to the test, as per the <a href=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/extreme-cholesterol-drop-experiment\/\">Feldman protocol.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Highcal<\/b> &#8211; The contributor reported higher-than-usual eating leading up to the test, as per the <a href=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/extreme-cholesterol-drop-experiment\/\">Feldman protocol.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Non-fasted<\/b> &#8211; If there was any reported eating in the 12-hour window before the test. These points are <em>excluded<\/em> from calculations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">&#8211; <b>Duplicate<\/b> &#8211; If the contributor posted the same test result in multiple comments. These points are <em>excluded<\/em> from calculations.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Methods<\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">I downloaded the raw comment database and wrote a script to process the data.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The script worked over a csv data file with the lipid scores, lifestyle tags, and thread context.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It generated an updated version of the data file with standardized units and an html page with the scores highlighted.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>It could also generate rows for candidate comments that looked like they might have a data point. In the end, I still had to type numbers into a sheet, but I had some nice tools to validate my work.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1133\" src=\"http:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-03-at-9.09.00-PM-300x85.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"85\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-03-at-9.09.00-PM-300x85.png 300w, https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screen-Shot-2017-10-03-at-9.09.00-PM.png 649w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note from Dave&#8211; I&#8217;m so happy this work by Craig is finally going up on the site. There was an extraordinary amount of work put into this post, not just in the writing and visuals, but in the meticulous effort he has put forth in mining all the data throughout the site. Extra thanks to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/blood-pool\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cholesterol","item-wrap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9EmAp-ig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cholesterolcode.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}