Sunday, February 5, 2012

Final numbers

Formal challenge concluded, I finally got around to compiling all of my numbers and generating all my charts. So here it is, the final data from my Vegan Challenge experiment.

1.  Average Numbers


In general, in the course of 31 days, there weren't remarkable differences in blood pressure or blood glucose level.  There was a decrease in average total cholesterol after 31 days vegan of 24.75 points relative to my baseline control average. The other endpoints - blood pressure and blood glucose - remained fairly comparable.

(Note - in my post "Control Month Is Over" I already included links to sites like the CDC and the American Diabetes Association, showing the recommended guidelines for what the healthy ranges of these numbers should be.)

In order to look at the behavior of these endpoints throughout the month, I charted the weekly averages of each one separately.

2.  Total Cholesterol

Oops - forgot to label the Y axis. Units are "mg/dL" or milligrams per deciliter.

This is how my total cholesterol behaved throughout both my control and vegan months. These aren't weekly averages since I only measure cholesterol once a week. In other words, the point on week 1 is from one measurement, rather than an average of "X" number of measurements for that week. The Week 5 data point shown only on the vegan diet curve refers to the fact that I have continued a vegan diet beyond the month of January. I plan to extend the vegan diet curve beyond the time frame shown above so as to chart what hopefully will be a continued decline in my total cholesterol values. Interesting how there was a drop on both months between weeks 2 and 3.

On week #2 my total cholesterol reading was 313, not too far from my highest reading in my control month of 324.  My first reaction was: "What??" seeing how I hadn't ingested a single molecule of anything from an animal in a week. I talked to some people at work about this and the consensus was that precisely because I suddenly stopped ingesting dietary cholesterol, this might have triggered a metabolic feedback mechanism whereby the body's cholesterol synthesis system 'over-reacted' to the sudden drop in dietary cholesterol by turning on cholesterol synthesis. Analogous to the body's reactionary nature to preserve everything it has if you put it in starvation mode, for example, the body may have 'overshot' cholesterol synthesis as a reactionary measure to the sudden drop of it in the diet.

3.  Blood Pressure

Here the Y axis is "mmHg", or millimeters of mercury, the unit used to measure blood pressure.

Here's how my blood pressure numbers behaved throughout the month. The top two lines are systolic, the top bottom lines diastolic, blue and orange sets for control and vegan months respectively. Unlike total cholesterol, the data point for each week here is an average of measurements for the whole week. In this case both the control and vegan months have a 5th week data point referring to the fact that, since I take this endpoint measurement daily, there are a few trailing days in a 31-day month (a week would technically be 28 days), which both my control and vegan months were. Therefore, the final 3 days would be like starting a 5th week, and it is those last few numbers that are plotted here for "week 5". I can always extend the vegan lines as I gather more measurements during my second vegan month and continue the comparison with my control month. Basically, I don't consider that there was any significant difference after 1 month vegan relative to my control month as far as blood pressure goes.

4.  Blood Glucose

As with total cholesterol, the Y axis here depicts "mg/dL" as well.
These are weekly averages as well, as was the case for blood pressure. I take 4 weekly measurements for blood glucose. These certainly look all over the place, don't they. Overall it appears as though blood glucose was a little higher during my vegan month relative to my control month, while still remaining under the threshold level of 100 (phew! :-) ). On the other hand, during my control month the range was more 'spread out', from a lowest week average of 78.75 (week #2) to a highest week average of 89.5, for a difference of 10.75 mg/dL. The range for my vegan month, however, seems a little tighter, with a lowest week average of 85 (week #3) and a highest week average of 90.67 (week #4), for a difference of 5.67 mg/dL overall.

I'm not sure how to explain the general trend for my vegan month numbers to be grouped higher (i.e. the chart is higher up) relative to my control month numbers.

5.  Weight - I didn't plot weight because I wasn't good with the exercise. I exercised a lot more during my control month than my vegan month. Just for accountability's sake: while in my control month I gained 8 lbs (!), I lost 4 lbs during my vegan month, hardly doing any exercise at all. If I get my act together and become serious and consistent about this requirement (and get myself at home at a decent hour), I imagine weight loss will kick in more seriously. And I hypothesize that exercise could very well play a role in my blood pressure and total cholesterol numbers as well.

So... what does this all mean?

Objectively speaking, either a) my numbers weren't that grave to begin with so in one month you're not going to see dramatic changes in them, b) a vegan diet does nothing for blood glucose or blood pressure, c) it takes more than one month for a vegan diet to dramatically, steadily, and consistently improve these numbers, if it's going to do so at all.  Basically, either there won't be significant changes or it takes more than 4 weeks to see them. In order to answer this quandry, it's a great idea to keep going for at least another month, if not longer.

2 comments:

  1. Just took some time to check on you. I'm surprised that the numbers were not as dratic as I expected. Maybe is my wrong idea of veganism being the magic cure for all our ailments. As was expecting more "magic". Anyways, I'm glad the cholesterol dropped. Can't wait to see the next 30 days. This is interesting! I'm gaining wait with my gluten free diet, not happy at all. Keep it up, you ared oing a great job. I love the updates.

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  2. Thanks! Yeah, I expected more dramatic changes, too, in the other endpoints. Then again, for a system that's been on animal and processed foods for 45+ years, 30 days might fall under the category of "overnight". At this point my bp is still very similar, and I've had a couple of glucose readings that have been the highest they've ever been. Colleagues at work feel the body is still in a transitional/adaptation mode. I had another 'spike' in cholesterol even into this 2nd month, probably the body's way of overreacting to the prolonged decrease in dietary cholesterol. It's all so interesting!!! Thanks for your support. :-)

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