Are you at risk for heart disease? Advanced Cardiovascular Testing (ACT) is the next generation of heart disease risk assessment. It provides a lot of information that helps doctors determine if you are at risk or not.
You know that we are experiencing an epidemic of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Nearly one million people die of CVD each year. In fact, it is the #1 cause of all deaths.
Nearly 2,400 Americans die from CVD every day, an average of 1 death every 37 seconds. More than 148,000 Americans who died from CVD in 2004 were under the age of 65.
Nearly 2.5 million new cases are diagnosed each year, and about 1 in 3 adults has some form of cardiovascular disease. It really is an epidemic.
The way we screen for heart disease now is by looking at total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL (“good”), LDL (“bad”), and the ratio of the two. This method is not very good because strange many people who have heart disease and falsely objectives many that don’t.
For example, more than 50% of people who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol levels And many people with high cholesterol do not have heart disease. In fact, more heart attacks occur in people with cholesterol below 200 than above 300. What’s going on?
The answer has to do with lipoproteins. You see, cholesterol, both LDL and HDL, travel in the blood attached to proteins. This combination is called lipoprotein (lipo means fat). When talking about cholesterol, most people think of it as a single piece, but in reality cholesterol circulates in the blood as thousands of tiny lipoprotein particles.
Every particle has a certain size and in this case size definitely matters. Both LDL and HDL cholesterol come in 2 sizes.
Small, dense LDL particles are worse than medium-sized ones. The small ones are bad because they can easily stick to the lining of the arteries. This can cause inflammation which proceeds to cause plaque. They make your heart disease progress twice as fast and increase your risk of heart attack by 300%! On the other hand, medium particles are quite harmless.
There are also two sizes of HDL cholesterol: large and medium. The big one is the most useful. It is like a sponge that absorbs the small loose LDL particles and returns them to the liver for reprocessing. This HDL is a true protector of heart health. On the other hand, medium HDL is not as effective.
There are different types of lipoproteins, depending on the type of fat and cholesterol they carry. Some of them are worse than others.
For example, Lp(a) (pronounced tiny lipoprotein) is the most damaging of all lipoproteins because it makes small LDL particles “stickier” so they stick to the arterial wall more tenaciously, causing more inflammation and damage. .
Lp(a) alone has ten times more plaque-forming power than small LDL particles. Too much Lp(a) increases the risk of heart attack by 300% even if no other risk factors are present. Statins are no help here, in fact they can increase the level.
About 25% of the US population has high Lp(a), but most have no idea because it’s often not controlled.
By now, I hope you understand that measuring total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol levels alone is not helpful at all and can be very misleading. As I mentioned, nearly 500,000 people a year have heart attacks even though their doctors gave them a clean bill of health because their cholesterol was “normal.” And millions of people with lots of large HDL particles take unnecessary statins.
You need to know not only the total amount of cholesterol, but also the Size and the Type of lipoproteins it has. You may have a “normal” LDL level, but if most of it is in small, dense particles, you’re definitely in danger. On the other hand, you may have high LDL, but if it’s mostly medium in size, you don’t have to worry about that, and you certainly don’t need medication to lower it.
Similarly, you may think you’re fine because you have high HDL, but if the HDL particles are small, they don’t actually protect you as well.
All you need is to ask your doctor for the new ACT test. It not only measures the total levels of LDL, HDL and triglycerides. Provides the size of the LDL and HDL particles (large or small) and the total number of each.
It also checks the level of Lp(a) and other lipoproteins, such as apolipoprotein A1 (good) and apolipoprotein B (bad). In addition, it also measures HS CRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein) and Lp-PLA2 (lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2), which reflect the level of inflammation within the arteries. Inflammation is what causes the damage to the lining of the arteries, which eventually leads to plaque formation and heart disease.
All in all, the ACT test provides a lot of useful information, which is not available in the typical cholesterol test. It really tells you if you are at risk or not.
For more information on blood tests, click on the link below.