Arterial calcification in endurance athletes
Do you have more insight on how we should interpret elevated arterial calcification in ultra endurance athletes? Some studies suggest mechanism is inflammation from this level of exercise stress and that arteries seem wide barreled and hence plaque stabilized, but how would that impact vascular elasticity and how do we interpret risk in this setting?
Interpreting CGM values
Trying to interpret blood glucose values using a CGM and have some questions regarding some less-discussed use cases. Could you explain how alcohol and exercise effects blood glucose values? eg. when I have one (or two) glasses of wine with dinner, the raises in my CGM are actually very minimal, why is that? What about exercise's effects? How can we interpret the spikes during HIIT exercises (riding my peloton)? And lastly, I see a lot of info about interpreting glucose peaks but not much about lows, is this alarming? I dont have diabetes but sometimes I fast (24-48 hours) and my blood sugar can go below 50mg, but I feel fine. Does this mean anything?
Is this “red flag” warning about high HDL levels credible?
How rigorous is this study? Are the findings and the “red flag” conclusions credible? https://www.healio.com/news/cardiology/20220524/very-high-hdl-red-flag-for-allcause-cv-death-risk-in-adults-with-cad?utm_source=selligent&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news&M_BT=6453759219670
If Atherosclerosis is a Particle Numbers Game, Why Don't Athletes Exhibit More Instances?
Having read your 9 part series on cholesterol, and listened to several of your podcasts on the matter, the argument seems to be that it's a numbers game: the more LDL particles in circulation, the greater the risk. If that's true, do athletes and others who regularly elevate their heart rate show worse outcomes (ie if the heart pumps more often, shouldn't that mean the endothelial gets exposed to more particles, more often?)? Isn't exercise instead associated with lowering LDL count? Thanks for all your great work on this topic - as someone who came into this with exactly zero understanding of lipidology, I'm really enjoying getting into the weeds on the subject!