What Does The Following Blood Test Report Indicate?

Posted on Fri, 28 Apr 2017

Question: I just received my recent blood work. It was called Comprehensive Metabolic Panel. All of it is within normal range. I take Atorvastatin, 10 mg daily. I have never been comfortable taking it. My HDL is 79, my triglycerides are always very low, below 50. It is my LDL that is problematic. It is about 130 without taking the Atorvastatin, going down to around 100 with the medication. While all my tests are in normal range, my AST is 41 U/L. I notice that is the top of the acceptable range. My Alt is 24, which looks like is fine. Should I be at all concerned?

Answered by Dr. Panagiotis Zografakis (21 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
probably not

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

your LDL is fine unless you have a history of coronary heart disease and diabetes. In such a case you should have targeted for lower LDL (lower than 70). If your AST is normal then there is probably no need to worry. Usually the two transaminases have similar values. When one of them is higher than the other, it's possible that something is going on. If your liver transaminase (ALT) is low then it could be muscular injury (caused by significant physical activity, fall, mechanical injury, side effect, toxic effect of various substances or drugs, etc). If everything is normal (including your CPK) and you don't have any symptoms then perhaps you shouldn't worry about it. A repeat measurement after a week or so should suffice to exclude disease. Otherwise further investigation would be required.

So in conclusion, this is probably something benign.
I hope you find my comments helpful!
Kind Regards!

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar