Lipoprotein (a) Test
Hi Peter, Thank you so much for all of your knowledge and expertise. I found your podcast over a year ago and cannot stop listening. You are on the cutting edge and we need more doctor's like you who are trying to increase peoples healthspan I want to predicate this with I know you cannot give health advice as you are not my doctor but was wondering about the results of my test. I am a 35 year old white male. Overweight (but working on it). My family has a history of pre-mature heart disease, CVD, etc. We have been monitoring my cholesterol for a few years and it has always been on the high side. Decided it was finally time to start taking a couple statins to help. Before we started i had my Lipoprotein (a) tested. The test results came back as 258 nmol/L. I know that anything over 100 puts someone at high risk. Especially for someone with a history. I believe this result puts me in the 99%-99.9% of Lipoprotein (a) but I can't find exact answers 3 months after my start of statins and all of my cholesterol numbers are down over 40% which seem to be great. Unfortunately we tested my Lipoprotein (a) again and the results surprised me i am now at 391 nmol/L. I know that there are not specific drugs to reduce this number but I am really curious what I should do as next steps. This question is probably outside of the scope of things you want to answer but I am just astounded by my high numbers and really don't know what else to do
Covid (or any infection) and ASCVD / CAC
I have been diagnosed with a small amount of CAC at the age of 42. I have no risk factors at all, but had a number of cardiac issues following Covid including myocarditis. I’ve done some research, including contacting Dr Jeremy Nicholson (Imperial College, London) who is doing groundbreaking research into post-Covid biomarkers and he has personally emailed me to confirm Covid is “highly atherogenic”, apob levels in particular skyrocket for up to a year after infection. There is also one study looking at early pandemic Chinese CTCAs in which 2 patients with no risk factors rapidly developed atherosclerotic CAC too (both were 0 but within 2 weeks were 36 and 6 respectively). Why are no cardiologists looking at or talking about this very significant and concerning new risk factor? Thanks
How can I find a doctor on board with "lower is better" and more aggressive lowering of cholesterol for prevention?
Do you have any advice on finding a doctor who would support a patient who would like to maintain LDL levels below 70 for prevention? Or even 100? After your podcast and reading 3 dozen or so papers I have bought in to this paradigm, but getting even a specialist to go off script beyond recommendations based on 5y risk has been an uphill battle.