HELP Interpreting recent blood test - Super low testosterone (149 Total)!

science
(Clint Jones) #1

I recently got my latest blood test results back, and am very concerned with my Testosterone results, as well as a few other markers.

Bit of background, 27 year old male with no history of health concerns, currently 70kg & approx. 14% body fat, started a low carb (<100g total) diet nearly 1 year ago, and have been intermittent fasting for a few months now (15 hrs each day). I’m also a keen triathlete, training 12-15 hours per week on top of a 60 hr (predominantly sedentary) work week.

It’s worth noting, I didn’t limit carbs for 2 weeks over the Christmas holidays, gained a few kg which I then lost over the first 2 weeks of Jan being back to the low carb lifestyle. Wondering the affect this may have had on my results. I tested in Sep 2017 after a good 3 months of fairly strict 50-80g total carb days.

Below are some markers/variances I’m concerned with.

  1. Cholesterol - Total 236 to 323, LDL 151 to 238, HDL 67 to 60, Trig 76 to 114. Apo B 122 to 143.
  2. Testosterone: free = 18.3 pg/mL, and total is only 149 ng/dL!!. TSH dropped from 2.81 to 1.84 mIU/L. IGF-1 is 126, Cortisol is 13.5. My DHEA-S & SHBG seem good at 395 & 39.
  3. White blood cell count is on the verge of being high risk - went from 6.2 to 3.8. My ANC dropped from 4.241 to 1.911…
  4. Ferritin is 312, Vitamin D is 40

Some positive markers:

  • Inflammation (hs-CRP) has improved from 0.6 to 0.2 mg/L.
  • HbA1C & Glucose steady at 5 to 5.1, & 75 for both tests.
  • All Liver & Kidney markers came back within the low risk range.

I have looked at the work of Dave Feldman regarding cholesterol, specifically LDL, and that has made me less worried about my cholesterol results, but the Testosterone level is worrying and I don’t know why / how to improve it.

Any insights or help would be greatly appreciated

(CharleyD) #2

Overtraining and undereating? Only your doc and your body knows for sure.

(Trish) #3

Is this your first T test or have you tested before and it was normal? I don’t think T is a usual test unless there’s a reason to test.

(Bunny) #4

Here is the most likely reason!

(Clint Jones) #5

It was my first T test, purely out of curiosity… I don’t have the typical “symptoms” of low test but these results have got me wondering…

(Trish) #6

So it could have been low since forever. Personally, I would go back to the doctor first of all to retest and make sure it was accurate and not a screw up or a one off. And then to do whatever other tests would be appropriate to determine the underlying cause.

(Britt Cleveland ) #7

Your free total and shbg dont seem to jive. Sounds like an error. Check out this calculator http://www.issam.ch/freetesto.htm