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Always Low Protein on Blood Tests

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
I have just had another blood test done through my GP and as usual my level of protein is below the reference range. It's always like this despite me eating protein with each meal and snacks.

I thought it was probably due to low stomach acid so I have been taking 650 mg hcl with each meal plus a digestive enzyme with my meals that has another 100 mg hcl in addition to the other enzymes but it hasn't made any difference to my protein results.

A month ago I did a 3 day stool test and this showed up a bit of a problem with digestion and absorption but nothing major only minor.

Does anybody have experience of this and have you found anything that can raise the level. Creatine is also low for me but this has raised a touch since adding 5g daily. The only other thing that is below the reference range is my white blood count but I ought to do a separate post about that.

Thanks for any insights.

Pam
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
I have just had another blood test done through my GP and as usual my level of protein is below the reference range. It's always like this despite me eating protein with each meal and snacks.

I thought it was probably due to low stomach acid so I have been taking 650 mg hcl with each meal plus a digestive enzyme with my meals that has another 100 mg hcl in addition to the other enzymes but it hasn't made any difference to my protein results.

A month ago I did a 3 day stool test and this showed up a bit of a problem with digestion and absorption but nothing major only minor.

Does anybody have experience of this and have you found anything that can raise the level. Creatine is also low for me but this has raised a touch since adding 5g daily. The only other thing that is below the reference range is my white blood count but I ought to do a separate post about that.

Thanks for any insights.

Pam

Dear Pam,
A low protein level in blood, much of which is albumin, is almost always due to an active downregulation of protein production rather than a deficiency. You have to protein starve pretty hard to lower your protein.

What has been known for fifty years or more is that being bedbound can lead to low protein. If I remember rightly experiments were done with people kept horizontal most of the day and protein levels went down significantly. So if you are inactive as a result of your ME, I guess that is a possible explanation.

Low protein also occurs with kidney and liver problems but other tests should show these up fairly readily and I suspect your other tests are OK.
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
@Jonathan Edwards Thank you for the explanation but I do an average of 7800 steps a day in between resting so I don't think that would apply from what you have said. The only other problem I have on all my tests for years are just below range lymphocytes and occasionally neutrophils which I guess is why I tend to pick up viruses very easily.

Pam