Bloodtesters: 30 hours of Cholesterol Tests

On the QS blog we announced a project called Bloodtesters. It was a new type of group experiment that was novel in that it combines group and self-experimentation.

The group part is that we all do the same experiment and then we have a common data set to explore. In this, we all took hourly cholesterol tests from during one day to see if there are any common circadian patterns in cholesterol levels.

The self-experimentation part is that each participant is then free to use that equipment for their own experiment. One person looked at whether eating vegan had an impact on her cholesterol levels. Similarly, another looked at whether starting a new weight training regimen had an effect.

My experiment was to see if there is a circadian pattern that could be seen in 30 hours of cholesterol tests.

I did this in conjunction with what’s called the triple chronotherapy protocol for adjusting one’s circadian rhythm. This is done by essentially breaking one’s circadian rhythm through self-deprivation, then using light therapy and a gradually shifting sleep time to move one’s wake cycle to an (usually) earlier time.

So basically I stayed up for 30 hours and took blood tests every hour. It was quite an experience.

This project log will track my progress in analyzing the data from this experience. Stay tuned.

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Looking forward to it, I’m barely willing to stay up 16 hours straight.

Your bloodtesters link seems like it might be broken, it’s currently returning some sort of XML document.

Thank you for mentioning the broken link. It’s been fixed.

Finally getting around to updating this.

Attached below are my results from testing my lipids over 30 hours as a part of the BloodTesters group:

This project was intended to be exploratory, so naturally, I was left with more questions than answers. I don’t know what to make of the 238 result for total cholesterol around 4pm. There were a few dips in triglycerides that seemed interesting, but upon looking into it and consulting my notes, they were samples that I didn’t feel were ideal. So I can’t read much into it.

The two data points that I’m most interested in are the 146 and 143 results for Triglycerides in the early morning. I have no idea why it shot up like that, and I’m curious to learn more. Is there some circadian-related routine that happens that would affect those levels? I have no idea. Obviously a small sample size, but if I were to do this again, I would be looking to see if I experience a middle-of-the-night spike like that again.

I mentioned in the first post of this thread that I was doing this in conjunction with a triple chronotherapy protocol to reset my circadian rhythm. Unfortunately, I was traveling at the time and despite my best intentions, was not able to stick to the protocol. I couldn’t get myself to go to bed at the right times.

That was my third time attempting the Triple Chronotherapy Protocol and it’s worked for me once. The issue is that my compliance could be better. Even though the sleep deprivation should make it easier to have an earlier bedtime, I’ve found it difficult to adhere to it. The one time it did work, it felt great. I had never felt more awake in the morning.

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How many eggs did you eat for lunch? :slight_smile:

Eggs aren’t supposed to affect blood cholesterol much, but perhaps that’s not always true…

Also, can you elaborate on the “caffeine”? Was there sugar?

I don’t have the spreadsheet in front of me, but I think that high total cholesterol reading was ~2.5 hours later after eating the eggs (I think it was three eggs). Since the total cholesterol reading went down at 6pm, I didn’t think too much about it. But that would, nevertheless, be something to test next time.

The caffeine came from caffeine pills. 100mg each time.

Maybe you should be tracking the amount of caffeine in your blood rather than the cholesterol :slight_smile:

I think the question of what happens in the middle of the night is interesting. During one of my experiments with the Freestyle Libre CGM I had some blood sugar spikes in the middle of the night. It was very intriguing, but I ended up suspecting device error. I’d like to do this again if I can get my hands on the FL system again - next time I would wear one on each arm and compare the results.

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There’s a lot to explore here. I’m thinking of Armen Gharibans’ gut rig that showed our digestive system is much more active at night than previously thought. It was only a few years ago that it was discovered that our brains shrink while we sleep to allow cerebrospinal fluid to go through and clear out accumulated waste products.

I am wondering how you took all the measurements. What kind of equipment you used ?

Hi Simeon, we used a Cardiochek point-of-care device. We did a research phase (thanks to @QuantifiedBob) comparing different instrumentation and measurement workflows, and then once we narrowed down to the Cardiocheck we did a calibration phase to gain confidence we could make the measurements accurately. Things worked out pretty well overall.