I took it and was surprised to learn I was in the high risk range. I tried a vegetarian diet for just under a month, re-tested and I'd dropped into the low risk range (this was the only lifestyle change I made that month). I found that a full vegetarian diet isn't sustainable for me so now I'm trying out only having meat once a day (usually for dinner) and will re-test to see what result that has. I suspect that the absence of meat may have been less important than the increase in vegetables.
The caveat is that hs-CRP isn't a perfect test because your result can be spiked temporarily if e.g. your body is recovering from intense exercise or a cold. That's why I think it's a good test to do more regularly and have longitudinal data for.
I've been spending a bunch of time getting more comprehensive blood tests recently. If you've any questions feel free to ping me (harjeet [dot] taggar [at] gmail).
That's a very good point. Quality of meat isn't something that seems to be accounted for in studies linking meat consumption to various diseases/health issues.
Out of curiousity, do you eat a lot of vegetables?
-30% green leafy vegetables (read: very low non-dietary-fiber carbs)
-10% fruit or carby veggies (e.g. tubers)
-5% grains (never gluten containing)
So I definitely have other confounding factors that might influence my CRP number: low carbs, very low grains. That said, I arrived at my current diet via 3.5 years of A/B testing what works for me, optimizing for specifically what causes my digestion the least inflammation. I'm very happy with the results.
But I think "just" might be understating it. Corn-fed cattle do not have the proper stomach ph to naturally protect against bacteria overgrowth in their stomachs (whereas if they consumed solely grass, this is naturally not a problem). As a workaround to the bacteria problem they are force fed antibiotics for their entire lives. Additionally: corn fed cattle yield 30-50% more meat because they are insanely obese. Beef producers have a perverse incentive to keep these animals in confined conditions (read: knee deep in their own shit) so that they don't get too much exercise. When you eat conventionally raised cattle, you're consuming the meat of a crippling infirm animal that lived its life in appalling conditions. It's a bad scene.
At a minimum twice a day, which I don't think is that unusual for most people e.g a chicken sandwich for lunch and chicken with some kind of side for dinner.
Cutting down to once a day i.e. having a vegetarian lunch, might not sound like much but it's harder than you'd expect. Most restaurant versions of a vegetarian option is a meat dish minus the meat e.g. a sandwich with just lettuce and perhaps one tomato slice. Finding a vegetarian option that's tasty and filling can be challenging (though comes with a good consequence of forcing you to discover new places to eat).
I'm sure this is much easier if you work someplace with a good catered lunch option.
Hmmm, I guess I'm something of an anomaly then. I can easily skip meat for a few days, or weeks, depending on what I'm cooking. I essentially never eat meat for breakfast, and my lunches normally don't involve meat either (typically a peanut butter and banana sandwich on wheat, some carrots with hummus, and a yogurt). If I eat at work, I prefer to make a salad. Dinner's the most likely culprit, although there are a lot of curries I enjoy vegetarian. Now that I think about it, I guess the last time I ate meat was Saturday, and someone else made the meal.
I guess it depends on how much you cook too, you're right about it being harder to find good vegetarian options, but I eat out one meal a week at most normally, and prefer none because I love cooking. I live in a small-midsize town in the south, so there's plenty of meat about.
Yes unfortunately most insurance won't cover any tests beyond the basic ones in your yearly medical. There are a few options:
- WellnessFX (http://wellnessfx.com) offers the nicest experience and display of your results, but it's pricey and the tests all come bundled together so you can't pick just one or two you're interested in.
- If you're in the Bay Area, the cheapest (by some distance) option is to use a new blood testing lab called Theranos, which has a ___location in the back of the Walgreens on University Ave in Palo Alto. If you download their lab order form (http://theranos.com/Content/pdf/theranos_lab_form.pdf), tick the tests you'd like and have an MD sign it (doesn't have to be your doctor, could be a friend). You can take it into the Walgreens and they'll draw your blood there and email you the results a few days later.
I took it and was surprised to learn I was in the high risk range. I tried a vegetarian diet for just under a month, re-tested and I'd dropped into the low risk range (this was the only lifestyle change I made that month). I found that a full vegetarian diet isn't sustainable for me so now I'm trying out only having meat once a day (usually for dinner) and will re-test to see what result that has. I suspect that the absence of meat may have been less important than the increase in vegetables.
The caveat is that hs-CRP isn't a perfect test because your result can be spiked temporarily if e.g. your body is recovering from intense exercise or a cold. That's why I think it's a good test to do more regularly and have longitudinal data for.
I've been spending a bunch of time getting more comprehensive blood tests recently. If you've any questions feel free to ping me (harjeet [dot] taggar [at] gmail).