Beyond Cholesterol Lies a New Approach to Heart Health

Advanced lipid testing and other markers can reveal key aspects of metabolic health, according to the experts.
Beyond Cholesterol Lies a New Approach to Heart Health
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Imagine a room full of your closest friends and family. The odds are that heart disease will affect at least one of them. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, claiming a life every 33 seconds. For decades, we have been told that lowering low-density liproprotein (LDL) cholesterol—so-called bad cholesterol—is the key to heart health. But with odds like that, something isn’t adding up.

“I think the current model is oversimplified and rather myopic,” Nick Norwitz, a Harvard medical student who holds a doctorate in physiology from Oxford, told The Epoch Times. “LDL is the most common biomarker now. There are better markers.”

Beyond LDL

You might have had your cholesterol checked and been told that everything looks normal. But those standard tests may only be telling part of the story. Traditional cholesterol tests, while still valuable, measure cholesterol amounts.
Jennifer Sweenie
Jennifer Sweenie
Author
Jennifer Sweenie is a New York-based health reporter. She is a nutritional therapy practitioner and trained health-supportive chef focused on functional nutrition and the power of natural, whole foods. Jennifer serves on the board of directors for Slow Food NYC and is a former board member of the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation.