reading eGFR threads from 2024 and half of it aged badly
reading eGFR threads from 2024 and half of it aged badly. I have gone back and forth on this for months.
Different laboratories use different assay platforms with different calibration. Comparing across labs adds a systematic offset that is invisible on the report.
Reference intervals are typically the central 95% of a reference population. By construction one person in twenty falls outside one on any given test without anything being wrong.
ApoB counts atherogenic particles rather than the cholesterol they carry, which is why it can diverge from LDL-C and why it is the addition most worth making.
If two or three other people have done the same thing we might actually learn something. Alone it is an anecdote.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Repeat testing before acting is standard practice for a reason: regression to the mean does a lot of work on single outlying values.
How many weeks between the two measurements?
Correction: that marker is reported in different units by different labs, which explains the tenfold difference you are seeing.
the trend line matters more than any single value
That comparison crosses two labs with different assays. The difference you are describing may be the method.
Yes — same lab, same fasting state, same rough time of day, or the comparison is doing nothing.
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.
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.
Agreed. The trend is the signal. A single value is a snapshot of one morning.
Did anything else change in that window — training, intake, hydration?
Small fix — a reference interval is not a treatment target, and the post above uses them interchangeably.
Agreed.
Agreed — and standardising the draw conditions is the cheapest improvement available.
Fasting or not, and what time of day?
Substantial weight loss independently moves lipids, liver enzymes and several other markers. Attributing a change to a compound while losing weight is confounded by design.
Agreed on assay changes. A lab switching platforms between your draws is invisible unless you ask.
Agreed on assay changes.
Adding the obvious one — take it to whoever ordered the panel. This board cannot read it for you.
hydration status moves a surprising number of markers
ask whether the lab changed its assay between your two draws
Disagree with reading anything into that. One value, one morning, and you changed two other things in the same window.
one measurement is a point, two is a line, three is a trend
Careful — that is a question for whoever ordered the panel, and nobody in this thread can answer it responsibly.
Left up. It is a question about how to compare panels, not a request for interpretation.
nothing on this board interprets your results for you
My ApoB moved and I spent a fortnight convinced I knew why. The repeat six weeks later was back in range and I had changed nothing.
Push back: a value just outside a reference interval is a common finding in healthy people. It is a reason to repeat.
- 1Nobody here can interpret your panel and this comment is not doing so. What…7 comments in this branch · started by u/micro_bump_mick