Tag Archives: cholesterol
New (2019) Cholesterol Treatment Guidelines
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th February 2019The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology have released new guidelines for the management of elevated blood cholesterol levels. These guidelines focus on LDL-cholesterol. They are summarized in the figure below which can be enlarged by clicking on it. They were published in a short article in the JAMA which is appended…
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More Uncertainty about Cholesterol and Cardiovascular Disease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th May 2017Cholesterol and lipid metabolism used to simple. There was good (HDL) cholesterol and bad (LDL) cholesterol. Eat a diet low in cholesterol and fat and your blood vessels will be as open as a new straw. On the basis of very little solid scientific information a litany of assumptions was issued by both the medical…
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Whom Should We Kill?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th November 2011The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2 Every child should be tested for high cholesterol as early as age 9 — surprising new advice from a government panel that suggests screening kids in grade school for a problem more common in middle age…The…
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Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd July 2010Measurement of blood cholesterol concentration is another screening test that has been widely employed without good evidence for its utility. There is no doubt that patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) benefit from the lowering of their blood cholesterol with statin (Lipitor and similar drugs) therapy – so called secondary prevention. But most primary care…
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Trans Fats, Big Brother, and Sloppy Science
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th July 2009Be afraid. There’s a plot to poison you with fat, trans fats to be precise or trans fatty acids to be even more exact. There are two articles in the Annals of Internal Medicine (here and here) which give a pretty good idea where medicine is heading. You’ve likely heard about trans fats. Their chemical…
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Statins and Venous Thromboembolic Disease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd April 2009The New England Journal of Medicine just published a paper examining whether the cholesterol lowering drug rosuvastatin (brand name Crestor) prevented venous thromboembolic disease. The study concludes that statin therapy does reduce the likelihood of this disorder. But like so much in medicine there’s less here than meets first glance. To begin with all the…
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