Falling ferritin is not always falling iron
The panel drawn during a week of vomiting is measuring the vomiting.
Kidney
Page 2 of 2 of this archive, newest first.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
A twelve-analyte panel in a perfectly healthy person has roughly even odds of producing at least one flagged result.
Vitamin D, adiposity, and a volume-of-distribution problem
Micronutrient guidance for this drug class is borrowed almost entirely from post-bariatric surveillance, where the anatomy is different and the deficiency mechanisms are not…
Why your laboratory interval differs from the one in the textbook
The arithmetic of the reference change value, worked for the analytes that matter here.
Falling ferritin is not always falling iron
Three different explanations for the same abnormal number, and how to tell them apart.
Vitamin D, adiposity, and a volume-of-distribution problem
Reduced intake is a plausible mechanism for deficiency. Reduced absorption is not, and the two are conflated in most of the advice.
What the outcome trials measured in the kidney
Asymptomatic pancreatic enzyme elevation is common on treatment and is not pancreatitis. The distinction is clinical, not biochemical.
HbA1c and its lag: what a result three months old is telling you
What the SURPASS and STEP programmes reported, with the estimands and the baseline values stated.
EGFR, cystatin C, and the check on the check
Estimated glomerular filtration rate is a calculation with muscle mass in the denominator of its assumptions. In this population that matters.
What the trials monitored, and what that implies about routine practice
Timing is the whole of the post-cessation panel: draw it too early and it measures the treatment period.
A guide to the results that will resolve themselves
Three different explanations for the same abnormal number, and how to tell them apart.
What the trials monitored, and what that implies about routine practice
Timing is the whole of the post-cessation panel: draw it too early and it measures the treatment period.
Which results are findings and which are consequences of the weight loss
The estimated glomerular filtration rate is calculated from creatinine, creatinine comes from muscle, and muscle mass is falling. The arithmetic is unforgiving.
EGFR, cystatin C, and the check on the check
What the renal and hepatic outcome programmes actually measured, and over what duration.
What a low result means when intake has halved
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
Micronutrient monitoring: which panel, how often, and on whose evidence
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
What the upper limit of normal for ALT should be, and why it is not
Asymptomatic pancreatic enzyme elevation is common on treatment and is not pancreatitis. The distinction is clinical, not biochemical.
Micronutrient monitoring: which panel, how often, and on whose evidence
Micronutrient guidance for this drug class is borrowed almost entirely from post-bariatric surveillance, where the anatomy is different and the deficiency mechanisms are not…
What has to change before a change has happened
A flag is a probability statement about a population. It is not a statement about the person holding the printout.