Blood test help!

male or female?

Male.

Gay or straight?

where the hell are you? Britain? Those are very strange units to get cbc results in.

In more standard units, your hemoglobin is 13.8 and your hematocrit is 40%. Basically that means that 40% of your blood volume is comprised of red blood cells. That is ok but not great for a post-pubertal male - a lot of male endurance athletes would hope for a bit more oxygen carrying capacity - more towards the mid 40 range.

The ferritin level is within the normal range reported out by most labs - ferritin is used as a marker for iron stores in your body and is used by physicians when trying to figure out why a patient is anemic. The ferritin level is widely debated on LR and other sports sites, as there are some who believe that a higher ferritin level correlates with better athletic performance, even in the absence of anemia. One problem is that there is a huge 'normal' range, and some people, even taking iron supplements every day, just can't bump up their ferritin levels much higher.

Other lab values that are generally helpful on the cbc are the mcv and the rdw, as these reflect the size and age of circulating red blood cells.

Other useful data to know include whether you live at sea level or altitude, and whether you have any dietary or other factors that might predispose you to iron deficiency. Even with the raw numbers, it is a bit hard to make an interpretation in the absence of any clinical history.

lab helper wrote:

In more standard units, your hemoglobin is 13.8 and your hematocrit is 40%. Basically that means that 40% of your blood volume is comprised of red blood cells. That is ok but not great for a post-pubertal male - a lot of male endurance athletes would hope for a bit more oxygen carrying capacity - more towards the mid 40 range.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Runners always have lower Hematocrits than they would if they weren't running, because the total number of RBCs goes up, but the volume of plasma goes up more so the net effect is a lowered Hematocrit.

And a Hematocrit in the "mid 40 range" (As scientific as that sounds, "Lab Helper") would be very very high. Most Hematocrit levels would be between 39 and 42 for a healthy male.

Well, it sounds like you have pretty strong evidence and opinions on this. I'm certainly no international authority but I've been doing clinical medicine for a long time and we see a heck of a lot of mostly teen athletes around this time of year. I like to screen all the adolescent females and also take a look at the male xc runners' cbc's. In my clinical practice, healthy teen female xc runners are almost always hct 39 - 42, and males are 42 - 44, and sometimes 45. We do live at 5000 feet, and that was why I asked the gentleman about whether he lived at altitude. We have a lot of endurance guys around here spending the summer in Flagstaff at 7000+ feet, presumably, at least partially, to bump their oxygen carrying capacity. So I rest my case there - I am not a sports physiologist, just a practicing MD, and this is what I have personally seen in my practice for over 20 years. My own 17 year old runner son, who does 60 - 70 mile weeks now, has a hct of 44. So you can angrily accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about, but this is what I see every day. Maybe our lab is reporting out bad numbers for me???

I support the MD above. If you look at the average hematocrits of cyclists, it's in the mid to upper 40's. They are doing everything they can to maximize their hematocrit because they understand the importance of it to their event. Same applies to elite runners who keep close track of their blood results. Whether this is achieved legally or not, their performance speaks for itself of the importance of RBCs. No way should endurance athletes be striving for "average, healthy male" values, given aerobic the demands of our sport. The same applies to ferritin (the research says it should be over 50 for optimal performance).

Mr. Money Bags wrote:

lab helper wrote:

In more standard units, your hemoglobin is 13.8 and your hematocrit is 40%. Basically that means that 40% of your blood volume is comprised of red blood cells. That is ok but not great for a post-pubertal male - a lot of male endurance athletes would hope for a bit more oxygen carrying capacity - more towards the mid 40 range.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Runners always have lower Hematocrits than they would if they weren't running, because the total number of RBCs goes up, but the volume of plasma goes up more so the net effect is a lowered Hematocrit.

And a Hematocrit in the "mid 40 range" (As scientific as that sounds, "Lab Helper") would be very very high. Most Hematocrit levels would be between 39 and 42 for a healthy male.

Hahaha. God I love to see douchebags like you get bitch-slapped by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

former lab tech wrote:

If you look at the average hematocrits of cyclists, it's in the mid to upper 40's.

I think it's called EPO, isn't 50 the "legal limit."

As I said, legally achieved or not (and staying below the limit of 50), they know it's critical to performance.

Boom my hematocrit is 48. I'll be sure to cheer you all on during my cool down jog

On a related note, I've heard Salazar wants his runners to have a ferritin above 100. Guarantee elite endurance athletes surrounded by medical staff are doing EVERYTHING they can to push the legal limits. You often see people come on here saying they "feel great with a ferritin of 30" or "oh, you're fine with a ferritin of 30 because it's in the normal range". People don't understand the best in the world are striving to have physiological parameters far above the average person because they know it's critical to max performance.

I passed the blood test. I emailed Nicole and she emailed me back.