Measuring more frequently generates more flags and not more information
What the pivotal programmes measured and how often, which is a more defensible template than most published monitoring schedules.
Thyroid
Rodent C-cell findings, the human data, and what the boxed warning is actually based on.
Monitoring intervals, and the case against measuring too often
Every additional analyte raises the probability of a flagged result and lowers the average information content of the panel.
What a low result means when intake has halved
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
A reference interval is not a target, and a result outside one is not a diagnosis
Almost every misreading of a laboratory panel is a misunderstanding of what a reference interval is and how much a result has to move before the movement means anything.
Measuring more frequently generates more flags and not more information
The argument for a baseline panel is that it makes every subsequent result interpretable. The argument against frequent monitoring is that noise accumulates faster than…
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
The arithmetic of the reference change value, worked for the analytes that matter here.
What a low result means when intake has halved
Reduced intake is a plausible mechanism for deficiency. Reduced absorption is not, and the two are conflated in most of the advice.
What a low result means when intake has halved
Reduced intake is a plausible mechanism for deficiency. Reduced absorption is not, and the two are conflated in most of the advice.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.
Vitamin D, adiposity, and a volume-of-distribution problem
Which markers are informative, which are confounded, and which move for reasons unrelated to nutrition.
Which results should be repeated before they are investigated
Timing is the whole of the post-cessation panel: draw it too early and it measures the treatment period.
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.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
A flag is a probability statement about a population. It is not a statement about the person holding the printout.
Which results should be repeated before they are investigated
What the pivotal programmes measured and how often, which is a more defensible template than most published monitoring schedules.
Which results should be repeated before they are investigated
What the pivotal programmes measured and how often, which is a more defensible template than most published monitoring schedules.
The three-times-upper-limit convention, and where it came from
What the renal and hepatic outcome programmes actually measured, and over what duration.
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.
Why the recent month counts for half the number
The assay is not the problem. The interpretation of a lagging integral as a current measurement is the problem.
What the outcome trials measured in the kidney
Estimated glomerular filtration rate is a calculation with muscle mass in the denominator of its assumptions. In this population that matters.