This is a paper that @ConquerAging has recently promoted via twitter
It makes an interesting suggestion that low bilirubin could imply problems with CAC. The average Bilirubin of the participants was 10.9 mcmol/L ranging from 6.9-13.6.
Its not a biomarker I know a lot about and my own bilirubin has gradually reduced. Whether that is something to be concerned about or not is not necessarily clear.
Sadly the paper is behind a paywall. Looking at the chart of Bilirubin vs CAC, however, some of the really low bilirubin measurements are also associated with low CAC.
Hence it is only a factor. They also say it may not be relevant to non-Japanese. I would, however, think that it probably is similar for different ethnic groups.
Interesting. The conversion to US units is challenging. Do you know if the measurement is of “direct” bilirubin? My results don’t seem to be in the same range as the study participants despite being in the “normal” range.
Total is what mine was and yours is at the top of the range. Also your ALP is 60. You’re going to live forever. Maybe I need to start working harder.
ALP is used in the Levine formula on the basis that lower is better for mortality. When people have damaged livers ALP is higher which is where I think this comes from. My recent values are:
64 61 59 59 62 54 50 51 66 52 56
The lowest I have had was 49 and the highest 136.22 (which was a temporary high). I started out last year averaging around 75 and am now averaging around 60ish.
This is in IU/L which is the same in the USA and the rest of the world (apart from a few places that use something like kat and I don’t know what that is.)
I don’t have a reference to the expected values of ALP by age. I don’t know your age. Hence I cannot say whether your figure is one worth reducing. Morgan Levine’s formula is driven by links to mortality, but there would be a point at which reducing ALP is potentially a sign of some form of damage.
My initial thought is that anything in the 50s is quite a good value and therefore not something to look at changing.
With my latest results (from yesterday), Aging.ai says I’m 26yo biological (vs. 61yo chron). That’s a 2 year improvement since I started rapa (and other interventions). I’ll do Levine next…I need to get a hsCRP that show results below 0.3 (my last test result was 0.19).
@John_Hemming I don’t know either. Aging.ai shows a range of 0.0-1.2 mg/dl…my result of 1.1 is near the top. In total my Aging.ai result is a very good 26 yo (35 years below my chron age of 61)…i don’t know if the bilirubin is helping or hurting the score. I also don’t feel 26 yo so there’s that.
The problem with using ALP as a marker is that it is not specific. It is a combined value of ALP sourced from different areas of the body. And using it in this formula is therefore dubious. It is only relevant in basic blood work to the extent that if the total value falls outside the reference range, additional testing is needed to determine the source of the deviation, whether it’s bone, intestinal, liver. So if someone really wanted to track this over time as a marker, what they’d really want is a more comprehensive test with a breakdown. The test is “Alkaline Phosphatase Isoenzymes.”
And for the intestinal value in particular, this actually falls with age. And you want to see this value remain higher. Supplemental ALP has been shown to extend lifespan in mice. As previously noted, there is a separate thread on that here.
