It seems like my current doctor only cares mostly about total cholesterol. Given current research, what are the best lipid panel metrics for evaluating patient risk? Total, LDL, HDL, Triglycerides, Total/HDL ratio? I’ve heard that the total is not actually a good predictor of risk, but that doesn’t seem to be what my doctor is saying. Thank you in advance.
Dr Dayspring and material from the National Lipid Association (NLA) are the place to go for this.
This is what I lecture on at our seminar, as well.
Not necessarily easy to understand, but it seems the Total LDL-P is a very important number. However, my lipid panels don’t seem to be testing for that. That’s not very helpful.
Yeah, sorry man – I recognize it’s not written to the general public. But I unfortunately can’t dedicate the time to translating the complexities of lipoprotein physiology here.
Yes, LDL-P is the primary target. LDL-C is a “proxy” measurement for it that is okay but does have limitations.
non-HDL-C is probably the most useful number to pull from a standard lipid panel.