[Discussion] can we stop arguing about baseline labs until somebody posts a number
Genuine question, and the title is the question: can we stop arguing about baseline labs until somebody posts a number. Time of day, fasting state, hydration and recent exercise all move common markers. Standardising the draw conditions is free and it removes most of the apparent variability. ApoB counts atherogenic…
Repeat testing before acting is standard practice for a reason: regression to the mean does a lot of work on single outlying values.
Compared two draws across two labs and spent a week worrying before finding out the assays were different.
Nobody here can interpret your panel and this comment is not doing so. What a board can usefully do is help you ask better questions of somebody who can.
How to make a panel worth comparing, which is most of the value people leave on the table.
Standardise the conditions: same lab, same fasting state, same rough time of day, same point in the week, similar hydration. Take a baseline before you change anything. Repeat any surprising value before acting on it. Change one thing at a time if you want to attribute anything to it.
Do that and a year of panels is a trend. Skip it and a year of panels is a collection of unrelated mornings, which is what most of the alarmed posts here are actually describing.
Same view — ApoB if you add one thing. It answers a question the standard panel only gestures at.