Almost 75% of heart attacks seen in people with normal LDL levels page

[barryman9000]

I'm sure this has been posted on here before, but I just found it. Interesting stats from UCLA:

Among individuals without any prior cardiovascular disease or diabetes, 72.1 percent had [hospital] admission LDL levels less than 130 mg/dL, which is the current LDL cholesterol target for this population.

However the funny part is one doctor argues that this means our current guidelines aren't LOW enough:

"Almost 75 percent of heart attack patients fell within recommended targets for LDL cholesterol, demonstrating that the current guidelines may not be low enough to cut heart attack risk in most who could benefit," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...art-75668.aspx

[rabbidchicken69]

Cholesterol is probably the number one argument against pb that i have to deal with on a regular basis, and no matter how much i explain and cite studies till i'm blue in the face it always comes back to dietary cholesterol bad statins good, so i kinda just concede and let other people think that cause i eat eggs and butter and bacon i will surely cease to live before i'm thirty no matter how much they pleade that cholesterol will surely kill me. just yesterday i was having to defend myself from one of these people, he told me that i might be losing weight and leaning out but there are some serious medical risks that i'm not addressing with the way i eat (basically i should rush to my local pharmacy for an extra large helping of statins) so basically my understanding goes real whole foods bad, chemically altered and processed fat free foods good. some peoples children i swear. good article though maybe i'll show it to him later. and ironically it's always the morbidly obese who cling to the notions that even though nothing they do works they have to be right cause science says so.

[Metismomma]

I completely ignore the cholesterol issue. My MIL had low cholesterol and managed to have her first heart attack at 40. Her second a couple years later and when she had her last 2 heart attacks(1 after another) she still had low cholesterol AND was on statins.

I know there was more to the story, but lets face it. Her cholesterol level didn't protect one bit.

[Jenny]

I love the underlying assumption of the doctor you mention above, as if these people with low LDL must secretly have plaque, therefore they had heart attacks. What about all the heart attacks caused by blood clots, coronary artery spasm, microvascular disease?

[lmyers04]

LDL can be OK--large and puffy - nor not OK - small and dense.