When 100 elite athletes from 11 sports underwent routine biochemical screening at the Australian Institute of Sport, the most common abnormality was an increased AST (27%).
The albumin/globulin ratio rarely gets much attention on its own. It may appear alongside the broader blood work discussed in Which Blood Tests Do Athletes Actually Need, but unlike many of the more familiar markers, it is not something I commonly encounter as a routine test in Finnish primary care.
It is fairly common knowledge that eating carbohydrate after training can be useful, and many people have heard that muscle handles carbohydrate differently after exercise.
Consumer amino acid panels are sometimes promoted as tools for identifying hidden deficiencies, optimizing recovery, or guiding supplementation.
Antioxidants are surrounded by a lot of noise. In marketing and popular media, they are often presented as something almost universally beneficial, while free radicals and oxidative stress are framed as purely harmful.
Although homocysteine is not routinely tested in athletes, it can occasionally appear on a blood panel when the test is ordered for other clinical reasons — such as suspected B-vitamin deficiency, macrocytosis, anemia workup, renal issues, or cardiovascular risk assessment.
In athletic patients, fasting glucose can appear unusual for several different reasons. In general, resting glucose tends to be lower in trained athletes than in sedentary populations, but training-related adaptations and recent exercise can sometimes push fasting glucose upward, at least temporarily.
I often see HbA1c treated as a straightforward marker of blood sugar control. In athletes, however, the picture can be more complicated.
Lactate dehydrogenase is an unfamiliar marker for much of the general public, and in my experience, it is also less familiar to many clinicians than enzymes such as creatine kinase, ALT, or AST.
In clinical practice, I may occasionally encounter a situation in which cardiac markers need to be tested in an athlete, including CK-MB.
In my clinical work, I often notice that many patients — and even athletes — associate albumin primarily with urine testing, particularly in the context of kidney health.
In sports—especially during prolonged endurance efforts—some degree of muscle cell damage commonly occurs. This is a normal part of exercise physiology.
Elevated myoglobin is often one of the first findings that raises concern for clinicians. In the context of myoglobin in athletes, this concern can be particularly nuanced.
In my clinical work, I frequently encounter elevated liver enzyme levels such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in athletic patients undergoing blood testing.
A sensation familiar to almost everyone is the buildup of “lactic acid” in the muscles. In reality, lactate is produced continuously, even at rest, but begins to accumulate as exercise intensity increases and production exceeds the body’s ability to clear it.
In my clinical work, I occasionally see elevated creatine kinase (CK) in athletes. This usually causes clinicians difficulty in diagnosis.
