Get out of the cholesterol rut
Sometimes the field of medicine gets stuck in a rut—an old pickup truck. Medicine has been spinning its wheels on cholesterol for years, but the mainstream's obsession with cholesterol numbers hasn't improved our health one bit.
The focus on cholesterol numbers is driven more than anything else by the multibillion-dollar cholesterol drug industry. Guess what? Nearly half of those who suffer an initial heart attack have normal cholesterol levels.
A new study, from doctors at McMaster University in Canada, gets us a little closer to the real story on heart disease. It focused on the ratio of two proteins, called apolipoprotein B100 (ApoB) and apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1). The international team of researchers studied data on more than 27,000 people after they had had a heart attack. They discovered that the ratio of apolipoprotein B100 (ApoB) to apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1) accounted for 54 percent of the risk of heart attack.
For comparison, the researchers found that the standard ratio of "bad" cholesterol to "good" cholesterol accounted for only 37 percent of the risk. The study looked at records from patients in 52 countries. Think of all the ethnic groups that includes.
Knowledge is power. Patients who arm themselves with information about apolipoprotein tests have just a little extra bit of control over their health care. Get yourself out of the rut of conventional cholesterol testing.
Automated apolipoprotein tests are now available, and these can be used to flesh out standard test results. Also, there is talk among other researchers to run the numbers to look for a link with diabetes. Comprehensive lipid profiles from Berkeley Heart Labs (www.bhlinc.com), Atherotec (www.atherotec.com) and SpectraCell (www.spectracell.com) all reflect this relationship. The detail offered by the tests from these companies goes well beyond the simple and sometimes misleading top line numbers shown in conventional cholesterol testing. In most cases conventional testing does little more than suggest to a doctor whether or not to put you on a drug.
Heart risk is a complicated business. You need to frame a treatment plan with your doctor and not get carried away with the quick-fix advertising that permeates our culture.
