Low white blood cell count.
 

I got the results of my annual medical yesterday; blood pressure 108/62, pulse 53, ferritin normal, electrolytes normal apart from slightly low sodium levels but that's normal for me, cholesterol normal, in fact everything was normal and according to my doctor I'm extremely fit and in excellent health apart from one thing, I have a very low white blood cell count.
Apparently someone with a such a low level of white blood cells should be extremely susceptible to all kinds of pathogens yet aside from catching the occasional cold in winter which I recover from in days I'm never ill. He compared the results with previous years and my white cell count has always been lower than normal but he couldn't understand why I'm not ill with the count being as low as it is this year so I wondered if anyone here has come accross something like this before.

I saw this when I had my blood tested awhile ago. Also had low platelets. I asked about it in this thread and got a few different answers. I didn't try to get a diagnosis of anything else, though.

Darryl,
Sounds like your doc is treating the numbers rather than the patient that is sitting in front of him. If that's normal for you and all outward signs of your immune system function / general health / energy are good, I'd say fughettaboudit.

Thanks for the link to your old thread. I've been eating mostly paleo/mediterranean ever since I bought a copy of S. Boyd Eatons book about twenty years ago so the research paper you found answered my question perfectly.

My doctor is treating the patient rather than just looking at the numbers and that's why he's confused. The numbers are telling him I should be ill yet I'm ridiculously healthy so he did tell me to "fughettaboudit" because there's nothing to worry about. He does want to know why I'm so healthy when I should be ill though so he's asked me to have some more blood tests in a couple of months so he can try and figure it out and now thanks to the research paper Mark found I can point him in the right direction.

It looks like the mystery of my low white blood cell count has finally been solved as recent research shows that there's an inverse association between fitness, bodyfat levels and your white blood cell count.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7669966.stm

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiolo...yDisease/11344

So he was treating the numbers. When I told my doctor I eat about 14 eggs a week, red meat every day, and tons of fat, he said my numbers will reflect it. They didn't.

Baselines for numbers are generally those used for people who look healthy on the outside but aren't. We don't fit that group so what makes a good baseline for us will wow most doctors.

Would you rather have a high white blood cell count indicating you were sick? :p If you are working in great order, that means your immune system doesn't have much to do other than stave off the occasional bug, and that's a great thing.