My superior vegan nutrition blood tests results

Hi there,

Just before I started my diet in the beginning of July I took a blood test and now I took more or less the same test again.

I am really thrilled, positively surprised and almost shocked to see such significant improvement in most parameters. 3 Months of super nutrition reversed my diabetes and improved other life threatening parameters significantly.

It should also be a good opportunity for you guys to learn about the main parameters that one should pay attention to when reading the blood test results.

It's not enough to worry only about the parameters that are in red according to the definition of your medical insurance. Total cholesterol, for example, doesn't have to exceed 200 in order to catch your attention - it should be a concern for you the minute it goes beyond 140. So take the time to go over this with me and learn something useful that could extend your life.

Glucose

Starting with the glucose test that in simple words measures the concentration of glucose (sugar) in one's blood. The normal range is between 70 and 100. Between 100 and 126 is called pre-diabetic and beyond 126 is diabetic. In the beginning of July I was shocked to find out that my glucose level sky rocketed to 129!! I immediately started my diet, and with the help of Joel Fuhrman's book "The end of diabetes" I lowered my glucose level and it now measures 97. I am back to normal. Actually when I measure at home I am more like in the 88-95 range.

Am I satisfied? Well partially yes, but I think that this is still too high - I would like to be able to go to sub 80 at some point cause I believe that one lives faster when having such high glucose levels. I want to live slower, cause I want to lengthen my life. I will explain all about that in one of the coming posts.


Hemoglobin A1C

Once a patient gets a glucose level beyond 100 - the doctor typically asks for hemoglobin A1C test. This test shows how good was the glucose level during the last 3 months. You want your Hemoglobin A1C to go below 6. My doctor gambled that I shall have a reading of 6.0 two months ago and I even exceeded that! That's a very very good result. The end of the diabetes as we know it....

Cholesterol

As expected my cholesterol is absolutely optimal now. I was vegetarian since I was 7.5 years old, but I ate junk food so my cholesterol was very high but still not extremely high because at the end of the day I was not consuming meat. However it seems like the other stuff that I was eating including eggs and milk and cheese still managed to take me to 197.

But now - look at this - 117 !! If you remember I quoted the 97 yo vegan - a heart surgeon saying "If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small"  and he then said that his cholesterol level is 119 atm. Well mine is 117 !! Hada boy!


Triglycerides

These are the fats that are so dangerous for the heart. You don't have to perform a blood test to get the reading... all you have to do is look at the tummy. I had a huge tummy and now it's gone.

GOT

Here too you can see that my diet has done wonders. Let me first explain what this test is. This test is checking the liver. As you know the liver detoxifies the blood in the circulation removing harmful substances, etc. Now there are several enzymes that are helping in this process. When the liver is damaged or destroyed these substances leak into the blood stream and can be measured. The problem with this GOT test is that it can indicate problems not only in liver muscle tissue but also in skeltal or coronary muscle tissues. To complement this test one should take the ALT test.

Anyway my doctor, contrary to the stupid doctors in "seker menahalim" immediately said that this too shall go away the minute I slim down! I like this doctor of mine. Not only is she smart and advanced, she's also even a little bit... humm... sexy.

Hemoglobin

The hemoglobin is an oxygen binding compound that carries oxygen into the cells and trust me your cells do need oxygen, otherwise you should feel fatique. I have always had low hemoglobin level but I was also always busy taking care of my job... I never had the time or the priority to look into this - IT'S ABOUT TIME! Especially since I thought that this nutritarian diet is going to improve things and as far as what I can see my hemoglobin got lower!!


Hematocrit

In conjunction with hemoglobin doctors always look at the Hamatocrit. These two folks typically go hand in hand. The Hematocrit is telling us what is the percentage of red blood cells in our blood. These red blood cells are carying the hemoglobin that carries the oxygen into the cells. My reading is low and it even went south in the last two months. You can look at it like this - the blood are the street of NYC and the red blood cells are the yellow taxi cabs and when their percentage is low then there's not enough taxis to carry hemoglobin so there's less hemoglobin too.

But why? Why do I have low Hemoglobin & low Hamatocrit? And also... - why me????


Iron


Big part of the Hemoglobin above is made of iron - and it's the one responsible for compounding with the oxygen and carrying it into the cells. So if there's no iron - then the hemoglobin is low.

And indeed !!! - my iron levels were always low but now, in the last 3 months they dropped significantly.

How on earth?

I mean I was eating tons of green leaves. But I read that plants based iron is not absorbed so good as the iron in the red meats. And stop with this "I told you" all you non-vegans reading this...

And I was also supplementing with 25 mili grams of iron pills - daily!

So how come this measurement is low?

I noticed over the years then whenever I am on a 'weight loss' diet my iron drops. But this time I thought it shall be different because I am supplementing and I am so healthy.

What is going on????


Ferritin

While serum iron is the level in the blood - the ferritin is the level of iron in the store house - in the liver. So it seems like I had huge improvement - I almost doubled the amount of iron in my storage.

But it's not in the blood... - why?

I don't know - but I suspect that the aspirin that I am taking on a daily basis is causing this. The aspirin is responsible for diluting the blood so yea it could hurt the hematocrit and it could also thus lower the hemoglobin...

So the hypothesis is as follows... - when I was fat and drinking 10 cups of coffee each day and eating lots of cheese my iron absorption was bad and thus the ferritin level went down. Then, when I started dieting 3 months ago - I ate lots of greens and supplemented with iron pills and indeed my ferritin went up however since my blood is diluted with Aspirion - it doesn't show... I will have to ask the doctor about this "theory".


MCV

MCV measures the size of the red blood cells Actually microcytic Anemia is defined in wikipedia as too low MCV. So as you can see things are improving but I am not there yet...

MCH

So if we are suspecting microcytic anemia then in this case the red blood cells should be hypochromic, that is - they should be pale. The MCH actually measures how pale they are. High MCH indicates macrocytic anemia and low MCH indicates microcytic anemia which means anemia that is cause by iron deficiency.

so to conclude the iron related blood tests here is what I think

• Ferritin is the most important indication for amount of iron in storage - and it improved.
• Hemoglobin & Iron as well as Hematocrit, MCV & MCH were probably affected by me taking Aspirion - so this is the end of Aspirin.
• Low iron can be a result of 3 things: low input of iron, bleeding & low absoption rate which could be genetic related.
• I shall do colonscopy just to rule out the bleeding option.
• I shall read and educate myself about iron input using plants - is it true that iron absorption from plants is that low?
• I shall not dive into genetics for now.
• After reading and educating myself about these issues I shall make my decision - increase supplementation or stick to plants as my sole iron source. 

Vitamin B12

Vegans can't get B12 from their diets. It's therefore that I get it from a B12 supplement. Before starting my new diet 3 months ago I measured the Vitamin B12 and it's ok, B12 deficiency are developed over a long period of time - years! so I think I shall monitor this annually to make sure that I have enough of this extremely important vitamin.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D was not measured 3 months ago - I just wonder why - I mean 1/3 of Israelis are Vitamin D deficient and I am sure those that are sitting in the office all day like myself are even more deficient. Anyway I started my daily "sun bathing" 3 months ago - and the results are showing that I am already out of the dangerous zone. I am almost sure that I would be at risk of deficiency or even deficient if measured 3 months ago. I can actually feel it in my bones - if I don't get the 10 minutes exposure to the sun on a daily basis then I can't concentrate, can't work effectively - for me it's a new habit. 

Conclusions

The results are astonishing - I got rid of diabetes, I reduced the cholesterol significantly, along with triglycerides, and resolved the oily liver problem. The only thing that is still a mystery for me is my iron levels and I shall explore that.

Aviel.