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Joni Stasiak MD
Steve Stasiak MD
Care for the entire family...
In the good old days, everyone was happy with a total cholesterol under 200. Then we starting hearing about the “bad and the good” -
As more and more data was collected, we kept seeing that the lower the LDL cholesterol, the lower your chance of having a stroke or heart attack. When your LDL was under 130, you had less heart attacks, so we started shooting for a goal of 130 for everyone’s LDL.
As we collected more data, we saw that in people with risk factors for circulation problems, if we lowered their LDL down to 100, they had less heart attacks then the people who stayed at 130. So, we started shooting for an LDL of 100 for everyone.
More time passed and more data was collected, and we continued to see a trend. In people at high risk for heart problems, if we lowered their LDL down to 70, they had less heart attacks than the people with an LDL of 100.
Well, unless we start putting Lipitor in the water, we are not going to get the entire population of the country to an LDL of 70...so when the “big cheese” cardiologists and researchers got together, they decided that what would be best was to treat people depending on their RISK for heart disease. If someone has a very low risk for heart problems, they really did not gain much by lowering their LDL from 130 to 100. However, someone with very high risk for heart disease DID gain a lot of benefit by lowering their LDL from 100 to 70.
Sounds confusing, I know, but basically it all comes down to the individual. We all have our own “risk factors” for heart problems, some more than others. Because of this, we have to look at the individual to decide WHAT cholesterol number is right for them. It’s like the old saying about comparing apples and oranges...we are not all apples!
If you want to know more about your risk factors and how changing them can help, click on the pill bottle below!
Not every one is the same now when it comes to cholesterol numbers...it depends on how “risky” you are!
It Depends....
