Inflammation Parameters To Check?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

Hi Paul,
I’ve been reading your articles about chronic inflammation and I was wondering if, as a blood donor, lab results could be useful to determine inflammation levels, i.e. checking white cells related parameters like leukocytes, lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils, or if there are other parameters to look at.

As a side note, and a little background here: I’ve been diagnosed with IBS a couple years ago, when I suffered two peritonitis in the span of less than a year and after countless checks that showed no physical or biological alteration of any kind in my guts.
Since then, it seems that my IBS is a mild kind, I haven’t suffered any serious drawback or other health issues except some side effects like difficult digestion and/or migraine that showed up periodically.
These side effects started to reduce significantly (both in intensity and frequency) since I started working out, two years and a half ago, and I’d say they’re rare right now, hitting me a couple times a year.
Is there, that you know, a correlation between IBS and chronic inflammation? Or, is IBS itself a kind of chronic inflammation?
And while I’m at it, two questions:
-probiotics: I’ve been taking them on a daily basis for a couple months, and wondered if I should stop them for some time every couple weeks;
-proteins: I wanted to start using whey and casein (low amount, 25-30g/day each, to stay in the range of 1g x pound of total protein a day), IBS never gave me issues related to milk, cheese, yogurt or other derivates. I’ve been having milk for breakfast (and sometimes after dinner) for years now, with no issues. Would it be wise to add protein shakes or does it sound too much of a gamble? As dumb as it may sound, I was wondering if there’s any kind of correlation between peritonitis and whey/protein powders in general

Thanks in advance

2

Yes, get your c-reactive protein checked. Then you’ll know. IBS is non-inflammatory. So it’s not that.

3

Thanks Paul,
c-reactive protein numbers don’t show in any of my blood donor tests, I’ll see if I can ask my doctor to give me a prescription to use the donated blood to run that specific test.
Having it checked about 3 times a year would be appropriate?

4

Yes that should be fine.

5

Pharmacist here. A couple of overlooked parameters that are tied to (chronic) inflammation at a cellular level are:

  • insulin, fasted
  • blood lipids, so all particles and triglycerides

Insulin being my absolute favorite that no one ever checks. If fasted glucose comes back normal -ish (say, 90+ mg/dL) but insulin is around the upper third of the range, we can start thinking of a degree of resistance happening. Now will that help IBS, I’m not sure. But that’s the chronic inflammation part.

Wheat (Fructans) is the classic bad food. Fructose should be avoided… I don’t think glucose is an issue but I’m always wary of oligosaccharides so grains and starch. Careful with those, thorough cooking will help.

6

Good stuff man!

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