Debate About Cholesterol Targets
October 20, 2006 by Lei
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
The New York Times wrote this past week about the current debate over cholesterol treatment. Up until 2004, LDL cholesterol levels were assumed to be ok if they were less than 130 milligrams per deciliter. New guidelines suggest that high risk patients reduce their LDL to less than 100 and very high risk patient reduce it to less than 70.
Some physicians claim that it’s not necessary to go to such extremes because it takes high doses or combinations of statins and other cholesterol lowering drugs to achieve LDL cholesterol of 100 or less. The effects of being on these drugs longs term are not clear.
To learn more, the American Heart Association has a cool interactive numbers chart and more details on “numbers that count for a healthy heart.”
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