Can so called ‘remnant cholesterol’ help you reduce your heart disease risk? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

We know that reducing LDL cholesterol, often by using a statin, helps reduce someone’s heart disease risk. Now that so-called ‘remnant cholesterol’ is being added to the calculations, what can be done about it? Johns Hopkins cardiologist Seth Martin says, not much at this point.

Martin: When we think about what we can do in preventive cardiology to help people, prevent heart attacks, prevent strokes, prevent mortality, so much of our evidence is around LDL cholesterol. When it comes to remnant cholesterol or triglycerides it’s still an area that we don’t have as much evidence around what we can do to help. With LDL cholesterol we have in addition to diet and exercise have statins, we’ve had a number of therapies  come out that show a benefit. We don’t have that same level of evidence for remnant cholesterol so it’s an emerging risk factor, but then the next question is well what can we do about that risk?  :34

Martin says it may still be helpful to know the numbers, however. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.