Lipoprotein (A): After Good & Bad Cholesterol, Do We Now Meet The Ugly One?
You deserve full disclosure about a controversial new risk factor
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What is New?
Lipoprotein (a) is making a debut in blood work as the third risk factor besides LDL and HDL. It’s portrayed as the uglier version of LDL cholesterol, and doctors increasingly recommend you get tested for it.
Why it matters
Contrary to its good (HDL) and bad (LDL) siblings, Lp(a) doesn’t give a damn about your lifestyle, its concentration is inherited, it has no pharmaceutical opponent, and we don’t even know for sure whether reducing it (if we could) will reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease.
What now?
You deserve a full disclosure about Lp(a)’s utility: what your blood work results tell you, why you shouldn’t lose sleep over them, and how to checkmate a less-than-sterling test result.
A confession
In the game of medicine, there exists no strict rule about how to best frighten patients with their risk factors, but there should be one rule about risk factors that neither patients nor medicine can control…
