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First off, I should reiterate for the uninitiated that the underlying cause of heart disease is not cholesterol. The media and many ignorant doctors are constantly warning us to monitor our cholesterol levels. If they seem too high, there are a host of dangerous statin drugs they’d like us to take – for the rest of our lives, no less!
I’ll say this just once: Don’t believe the hype!
Most of these warnings are complete and utter nonsense. We’re told our total cholesterol should be below 200. However, what they fail to mention is that half of all people who have a heart attack have perfectly healthy levels of cholesterol! And while doctors love to admonish us to keep our cholesterol levels “as low as possible”, they also conveniently fail to mention that your risk of stroke increases as your total cholesterol drops below 180 (and anything approaching 150 is positively dangerous).
Long story short, cholesterol is no more the cause of heart disease than a runny nose is the cause of the flu. It’s a symptom, nothing more. In fact, the healthiest range of cholesterol is 180-240. However, your cholesterol can be even higher and still be considered healthy so long as your HDL levels are at least 25% of your total cholesterol. In fact, many alternative healthcare experts suggest that, if all other lipid profiles are healthy, your total cholesterol must be up in the multi-hundreds to truly matter in predicting cardiovascular disease.
That said, what I want to talk about today is LDL (Low-Density Lipoprotein), also known as “bad cholesterol”.
Here again, an unknowing public is only being given half the story. We’re told that cholesterol is bad (it isn’t) and that LDL is also bad. Like so many things, this is only a half truth – and overlooking this fact makes a huge difference to your health and long-term well being.
The reason for the above is because there are actually two different types of LDL – Pattern A and Pattern B.
Pattern A LDL is generally considered harmless because it doesn’t cause plaque buildup on the walls of our arteries (which leads to blockages and heart attacks). Pattern B, however, is the real bad guy (also known as VLDL, or Very Low Density Lipoprotein). Pattern B LDL is made up of smaller molecules that get into even our smallest blood vessels and cause inflammation, which in turn stimulates plaque formation.
Unfortunately, a typical lipid profile (which measures total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and triglycerides) lumps the two types of LDL into one measurement. While there is a specialized blood panel you can have performed to test for the specifics of your LDL, this is rarely ordered by most doctors.
The goods news – and the reason for this update – is that you can roughly determine your general level of Pattern A vs. Pattern B LDL by simply looking at your ratio of triglycerides to HDL (“good cholesterol”).
If your HDL is high (60 mg/dL or at least 25% of your total cholesterol) and your triglycerides are low (under 150 mg/dL, but also no more than double your HDL), then your LDL is predominantly made up of the relatively harmless Pattern A variety.
If the opposite is true – your HDL is low while your triglycerides are high – then your LDL levels are predominantly made up of the unhealthy Pattern B (VLDL) variety.
If you find your HDL, LDL and triglyceride levels are out of whack, it’s a fairly simple thing to bring them back to healthy levels…
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