Word: hdl
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...wait. "There are 32 people ahead of you," the screen says. Pretty realistic, I think. Next time I'll bring a magazine. Ten minutes later, I'm in a one-on-one chat with Amdoc4. I ask him one of my standard test questions: "Why don't my HDL and LDL numbers add up to my total cholesterol number?" And he answers, correctly, that there are other factors like VLDL...
Most worrisome, my LDL level (the so-called bad cholesterol, but actually low-density lipoprotein, which helps maintain cholesterol in the blood) is high at 148 compared with my "good" HDL (high-density lipoprotein, which helps clear cholesterol), which is 54. Moore assures me I can lower my cholesterol without medication and asks about my diet. While I generally stay away from red meat and eat mostly fish, chicken, vegetables and salads, I confess a weakness for cheese, potato chips and butter on all sorts of things. Moore wonders if I am ready to "commit"--as she says--to eliminating...
Results: after five years, subjects on lovastatin had lowered their bad cholesterol and other dangerous blood-borne fats and had boosted their HDL, or "good" cholesterol. And they had a 37% lower incidence of serious heart disease than those who were given placebos, or pills without lovastatin. Though I'm technically too young to qualify, I'm pretty close, and I'm sure the drugs would lower my cholesterol too. I'd be crazy not to start on lovastatin at once. Right...
...good cholesterol" you hope will turn up in your blood test has that name for a reason. More properly known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL), it can prevent the damage done by its evil twin, low-density lipoprotein (LDL). The latter clogs blood vessels by combining with oxygen to form a substance that sets off alarms in the immune system. White blood cells rush to attack it, and the whole mess forms into sticky globs called plaques that cling to vessel walls like mineral deposits in a water pipe. When these deposits break off and blood clots around them...
...HDL is good because it keeps LDL from combining with oxygen in the first place. But doctors at UCLA studying HDL in mice have found that when the immune system is under stress--after surgery, for example, or during a major infection--HDL stops producing an enzyme called paraoxynase and thus loses its antioxidant properties. When good cholesterol goes bad, moreover, it goes really bad. Not only does it stop protecting the body against LDL, but it also seems to goad the immune system into forming plaques even more quickly...