Personal & page updates - Klaus Townsend

Rhabdomyolysis

Recently, after training to failure with a combination of weights and jarring movements, I developed rhabdomyolysis, which is when your muscles break down, causing the contents to circulate in the blood which causes strain on the liver and kidneys.

As such, some of my blood markers temporarily skyrocketed, as you would expect with rhabdo¹. Most notably, my AST jumped up from 29 to 345 U/L, and ALT from 37 to 160 U/L, when the reference range for both is <45, with optimal values being in the 20s.

The values are back down to normal now, which is good validation that my organs are healthy. I also see it as a good validation of my protocol, since rhabdo is a fairly common condition in people who push their physical fitness.

This notably happened last year to one of the fittest athletes in the world, Dallin Pepper², who I respect a lot and who took months to recover³, so I’m in good company here. My focus on whole-body health and fitness has served me well in my recovery.

I have lost some muscle and strength from the condition, and more from the forced downtime, so I am building that back up now. The loss hasn’t been substantial, it’s roughly equivalent to the inverse of what I would have been gaining during that training time, so it won’t take me long to get it back.

I’m already someone who naturally pushes myself too hard, which has resulted in different health problems in the past, so going from that high baseline to the even higher point I pushed myself to wasn’t a good idea. Going forward I will be more careful not to push myself so hard.

Protocol and Biomarker page updates

I have done a lot of updates to the Protocol and Biomarker pages.

I also added a changelog section to the end of the pages to make it easier to see the changes over time. I will continue to post about the updates too, so that subscribers get notified of changes.

The full changes from this round of updates are:

Supplements

Added Life Extension ergothionine
Added NOW Glucosamine sulfate (750mg)
Added DoNotAge Spermidine
Added DoNotAge Hyaluronic Acid
Added Flow State AM Blend with the morning coffee (organic cordyceps and lion’s mane extracts)
Added Flow State PM Blend with the evening decaf chai (organic chaga, reishi, and turkey tail extracts)
Increased glycine from 2g to 5g for glutathione and collagen synthesis
Replaced Bioptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough with Nordic Naturals Magnesium Complex, because of third-party testing
Replaced NOW L-Carnosine with Life Extension L-Carnosine, same dose
Replaced NOW Beta-alanine (1500mg) with Swolverine Beta-alanine (5000mg), for third-party testing
Reduced Rhodiola from 12.11mg rosavins to 9mg rosavins (Blueprint changed their dose)
Reduced ashwagandha from 600mg (0.62mg withanolides) to 120mg (Blueprint changed their dose)
Removed NAC from the regular rotation, it seems to reduce my inflammatory response to exercise too much
Removed BePure probiotic

Food, drink, and environment

Reduced protein goal from 1.6g/kg to 1.4g/kg
Added tinned sardines in extra virgin olive oil
Added beet juice to berry smoothies
Added grounded sheet and nasal dilator to sleep section

Biomarkers

Resting heart rate rose from 47 to 51bpm
Systolic blood pressure fell and diastolic rose, from 122/63 to 120/70
Average HRV rose from 71 to 72ms
Average PWV, sleep score, Withings nerve health stayed the same

Blood and physical performance

Alk. Phosphotase (ALP) went down from 82 to 79U/L, continuing its downward trend from a high of 90 last year, which I have been focusing on so I’m proud of that one
Bilirubin went up slightly from 17 to 18umol/L
GGT went down slightly from 24 to 23U/L
Fasting glucose went down from 4.8 to 4.6mmol/L, but HbA1c went up slightly from
32 mmol/mol to 34
CRP went up slightly from 0.3 to 0.4mg/L
Hemoglobin is up from 161 g/L to 165, which I like
MCV went from 89 fL to 91, which I don’t like
Cholesterol went up from 5.8 to 6.2 mmol/L which is the wrong direction and I need to focus on that, as did triglycerides, HDL, and LDL
EGFR improved slightly from 114 to 117
VO2max and 12-minute run distance reduced slightly, from 2.21km (38.1 vo2max) to 2.18km (37.4 vo2max)