Article Text
Abstract
The level of lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)), an important cardiovascular risk factor, is considered to be genetically determined. I am a 55-year-old male physician specialised in preventive medicine and a hobby triathlete with a body mass index of 24.9 kg/m2 and a maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) of ~50 mL/(kg×min), with an average of 7–10 hours of exercise per week.
I discovered my own Lp(a) at 92–97 mg/dL in 2004 and measured a maximum Lp(a) of 108 mg/dL in 2013. Surprisingly, I observed a much lower Lp(a) of 65 mg/dL in 2018. This happened after I had adopted a very-low-carb ketogenic diet for long-term endurance exercise.
My n=1 experiment in July 2020 demonstrated an increase in Lp(a) back to 101 mg/dL on a very high-carb diet within 2 weeks, and a drop back to 74 mg/dL after 3 weeks on the ketogenic diet afterwards. The observed large changes in my Lp(a) were thus reproducible by a change in carbohydrate consumption and might have clinical relevance for patients as well as researchers in the field of Lp(a).
- lipid lowering
- biomarker
- nutritional treatment
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Footnotes
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Contributors This paper is JGS' own original research. JGS had the idea and wrote the manuscript.
Funding Dr Scholl Prevention First (JGS' own private practice).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.