Hey all,
I decided to forego racing this year after my bout of bleeding, chicken pox, surgeries and more. Because of that, I decided to go to the doctor and get every blood and physical test possible to check my health.
I heard from the doctor today. He is mailing the full blood results, but set everything looked good except I had slightly elevated blood protein levels. Does anyone know what exactly that might imply or mean? And what could cause that?
Normally, when I’m not having surgery or other problems, I ride 10 to 20 hours a week, and even lately my hours have been in the double digits. I am also doing strength training once a week for maintenance.
The doctor specifically asked if I have a lot of protein shakes. And honestly, I feel like if anything I would need more protein in my diet. My breakfast is always porridge with fruit, and my lunches are vegetable smoothies and recovery shakes that are higher on carbs than protein.
As far as I’m aware, I don’t have any underlying health issues that would cause that. I’m just wondering if anyone here has ever experienced that or might have any ideas? I will talk to the doctor next week when he’s back in the office, but I just like to know if anyone’s experienced that.
My blood appointment was a little last minute, so I was not fasting when I had it done, and I rode earlier that morning. Would exercise, meaning something right before, lead to a breakdown of muscle tissue that could get into the bloodstream? Would something like that cause it? I hadn’t really had that much protein that day since it was before dinner which is when I usually have most of my protein intake. Let me know if anyone else’s experienced this! Thanks for the help.
PS, I don’t know the exact levels and he said it wasn’t anything to worry about, but he did say it was slightly elevated.
It looks like exercise can definitely mess up with a lot of things checked in blood tests. Effects of Acute Endurance Exercise on Plasma Protein Profiles of Endurance-Trained and Untrained Individuals over Time - PMC
@ChrisDe lol, that’s the exact study I was just reading! I had had a fairly strenuous week up to then, so that might account for something.
I was originally going on a Saturday morning, but that was the day my wife and I were celebrating our 12 year anniversary, so I got this other appointment last minute with my family doc and drove to see him immediately. I guess that could account for a slightly raised number?
Like your serum “total protein” was slightly high?
Total protein is predominantly albumin. The remaining serum proteins are referred to as globulins, and grouped together into 4 groups based on where they end up during gel electrophoresis - alpha1, alpha2, beta, gamma (basically based on charge).
There are hundreds and hundred of different proteins that make up the globulin fractions.
If your TP was only marginally elevated the most common reason is going to be biological or assay variance.
There are no such things as “normal” levels for labs anyways. The ranges given are upper and lower reference limits derived from a control/sample healthy population - typically a 95 or 99 percentile confidence interval.
Many people will have values outside of these ranges for various reasons. Especially if it’s only slightly outside the reference limit it typically means absolutely nothing. Basically, it is not abnormal to have a couple lab values outside the 95th percentile values from a sample of the population.
In fact, if you check 20 blood tests, and the limits are based on a 95 percent CI, there is a ~67% chance one value will be outside the reference limits just due to random chance alone.
I will check when I get the printed results next week and bring y’all some more info. But thanks for that very thorough explanation.