Cholesterol 2025: Part 1 & health screening
As usual, I did health screening in January, shortly after I returned from my trip to Australia. In future, I plan to do this before the trip because I realised that the results do not represent my usual health condition. I considered postponing the tests by about 3 months but then I remembered that although I ate more sinful food (specifically dessert and slightly sweet drinks) in Australia, I also exercised a little more than usual. So, I went ahead to get them done.
WBC dropped slightly from 3.5 to 3.4, which is comfortably above 3. This time, they also provided the absolute count of the various types of WBC. Neutrophil count is at 2.1 i.e. comfortably above 1.5. Lymphocyte and monocyte are, however, below the the acceptable range i.e. 1.0 (ref 1.5-4.5) and 0.2 (ref 0.4-1.1) respectively. Based on previous year's results, my GP calculated the counts of these two and the results were similar as well. Given that clearly I'm generally fine, she wasn't too concerned about these.
As for the elevated SGPT (ALT) (one of the liver function tests), 77 (ref 0-53) is not alarming yet: alarming level would be 3 x 53. She advised me to retests this in 3 months time.
The cholesteroal results as compared to Oct 2024 (Sep +10 days) are as follows:
Oct 24 Jan 25 Ref
Total cholesterol 6.2 6.6 <5.2
HDL ("good") 1.53 1.78 >1.04
LDL ("bad") 4.3 4.3 < 2.6
Triglycerides 0.9 1.1 <1.7
Total/HDL
ratio 4.1 3.7 < 5.0
Non-HDL 4.7 4.8 <3.4
In addition, this time there was also a test for the level of apolipoprotein B, which is a measure of risk for cardiovascular disease asssociated with LDL. Mine is normal i.e. 1.12 (ref 0.63-1.33).
Total cholesterol increased by mainly due to the increase in HDL. This is confirmed by the decrease in the "Total/HDL ratio". I'm relieaved that the results were not worse than 3 months ago. The GP wasn't particularly worried about this either but she did reiterate that I can take medicince if I want to.
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