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May Newsletter from Dr Jared Hanson ND LAc:

Beyond Cholesterol

Better Tools for Assessing your Cardiovascular Risk

By now most people are familiar with cholesterol and its association with heart disease, heart attack and stroke. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the U.S. and its manifestations - heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms – can strike suddenly and kill us before help can be reached. Therefore, a thorough assessment of your risk is important.

However, it is important to be aware that high cholesterol is not the only risk factor for cardiovascular disease and that cholesterol levels alone do not give a complete picture of your risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events. In fact, total cholesterol levels are normal in half of all heart attack patients. Cholesterol has gotten most of the attention because there are pharmaceutical drugs available to lower cholesterol levels, though widespread use of these drugs has not led to the lower levels of mortality you might expect. It is far more profitable for drug companies to focus advertising and funding for research on cholesterol rather than the host of other risk factors for which they have no drugs.

Doctors now routinely test total cholesterol, HDL (the “good” cholesterol), LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides and usually recommend treatment for patients who have levels that are associated with higher risk. However, there are several other risk factors that are not generally tested and may also indicate an increased risk, regardless of cholesterol levels. Running these tests will give a more complete picture of your cardiovascular risk. A reduction in these risk factors through nutritional interventions has been demonstrated in many scientific studies.

LDL Particle Size – More significant than levels of cholesterol is the size of the cholesterol particles in your blood. People with coronary artery disease are twice more likely to have small LDL particles than high LDL levels.

Fibrinogen – This measures the ‘stickiness’ of your blood, i.e. its tendency to form clots, a cause of strokes and heart attacks.

Homocysteine – High levels of homocysteine damage the lining of blood vessels and encourage the formation of blood clots.

C-reactive protein – One of the best predictors of future heart attack, CRP is an indicator of chronic inflammation, one of the root causes of chronic disease, including coronary artery disease.

Lipoprotein (a) – This represents your genetic susceptibility to heart disease and is the best indicator of your risk of cerebral infarction or stroke.

Apolipoproteins A & B – These are components of cholesterol that offer a better indication of cardiovascular risk than cholesterol or LDL levels.

Ferritin – This test measures iron stores in the body. Increased iron stores encourage oxidation and are associated with an increased cardiovascular risk.

Ionic Magnesium Levels – Low tissue levels of magnesium have been associated with angina and heart attack. Magnesium has also been shown effective in reducing blood pressure.

Vitamin D – A deficiency of vitamin D has been associated with an increased risk of heart attack.

TSH – Though this is included in most basic bloodwork, the standard range is too wide. This leaves many people who are actually hypothyroid undiagnosed. Hypothyroidism is associated with atherosclerosis and heart attack.

If you are concerned about cardiovascular health, you should consider getting more extensive cardiovascular risk testing beyond cholesterol. Though there may not be drugs to address most of these lab measures, dietary change and nutritional supplementation can be quite effective in returning them to normal