The way the medical establishment assess risk of CVD or a potential heart attack or stroke is antiquated. They use levels of LDL-C cholesterol as their primary indicator along with a probability ranking based on risk factors like smoking.
There are blood tests that can shed more light on your current cardiovascular health and provide a more complete picture from which to make a more informed assessment.
MPO - Myeloperoxidase levels in your blood can be measured during the normal lipid profile when checking cholesterol levels.
To learn more about this test and to read about a doctors advice on how to minimize your risks read this article:
Yes I agree, tests like the Framligham risk assessor are really only relevant to people who live in Framligham. If you plug a French persons readings in it will over estimate their chances by about 3 fold. Just had my MPO done and happily it was super low.
I did an MPO test in September and got a 239 reading which is in the low risk category and then last week and it was 221 which is even better. I think it is good to do this test twice a year to monitor progress in potential athero regression.
Out of curiosity what was your number? I'm male aged 54, triple bypass in 2015.
It came in at less than 0.01 IU/ml where greater than 5 is deemed at risk
Your reading may be on a different scale
The interesting thing was that all my ratios are pretty good but my LP-PLA2 score comes in at about 210 which is above the acceptable range. Have you had this test ?
I just moved to ApoB and ApoA-1 measurements from standard lipid profile last November. LP-PLA2 is uncommon in Canada as a lipid measuring test. For that matter, so are the Apolipoprotein measures. I have found a lab that does do this test and intend to use it in the near future. The ApoB/ApoA-1 ratio is considered by researchers to be the single best treatment marker and CVD risk measure. That said Lp-PLA2 has also been extensively documented as an excellent risk marker.
You should look up my post on 'cholesterol busting super soup'.
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