Raising HDL, widely known as good cholesterol, for years has been thought to protect against heart attack and stroke. But a big new study published [Oct. 31] found little evidence it does.
The finding upends the advice doctors have been giving millions of patients — and helps explain why the drug industry has failed time and again…to develop a drug that cuts deaths from heart disease by boosting HDL levels.
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HDL has been thought to lower cardiovascular risk by cleansing the bloodstream of “bad” cholesterol and scrubbing the inner walls of blood vessels, so your levels of HDL were thought to predict your risk of heart attack or stroke. But this new data suggests HDL may just be a fatty substance along for the ride.
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Still, cardiologists said it may still be useful to keep measuring HDL in blood lipid tests, because it does seem to be correlated with other factors that can affect health, such as diet and exercise habits.
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And HDL may yet redeem itself in the world of drug development…It’s possible a deeper look at HDL subtypes could reveal a more nuanced relationship with cardiovascular disease….
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Raising ‘good’ cholesterol doesn’t protect against heart disease after all, study finds
