Why do OVER 50% of People with Normal Cholesterol End up With Heart Disease?
Cholesterol is not the reason you end up with heart disease. Cholesterol is an essential part of every cell in your body and your hormones. The concerns is when there is an inflammatory response. What happens is cholesterol comes to the rescue and fixes that inflammatory response in your artery. The whole goal is to reduce inflammation.
Cholesterol comes in a few shapes and sizes. Your artery is protected by a tennis like structure, called your endothelial lining. To keep it simple cholesterol comes in two sizes. There are small particles like golf balls, and larger particles like tennis balls. The tennis ball sized particles will not penetrate the endothelial lining (tennis net), and the smaller golf balls will. They are called atherogenic (plaque causing) particles. It is important to keep the small cholesterol to a minimum or make them larger.
Therefore, not all bad cholesterol is bad and not all good cholesterol is good. Many time patients will be prescribed a cholesterol lowering drug when they have a lot of tennis ball sized LDL particles (good), and sometimes patients will not be prescribed a cholesterol lowering drug when they have a lot of golf ball sized LDL particles (bad). This is why over 50% of patients who have normal cholesterol end up with heart disease. It is due to inflammation and a high amount of atherogenic (plaque causing) LDL particles. We provide valuable screening tests to understand your cardiovascular disease risk.
Are you taking a STATIN Cholesterol Lowering Medication?
