When good cholesterol is even better
HDL's efficiency, not just quantity, appears important for heart health
How much good cholesterol a person has is not as important as how well that good cholesterol works to stop heart disease, a new study suggests.
High-density lipoprotein — also known as HDL, or “good” cholesterol — is healthy for the heart, previous studies have indicated. People with high blood levels of the molecule tend to have lower risk of developing heart disease than people with low levels.
But a new study suggests that the amount of good cholesterol in the blood may not be the most important factor in protecting against clogged arteries and cardiovascular disease. The study, published January 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that HDL’s efficiency at removing fats from arteries is a better predictor of who will develop heart disease than is the level of good cholesterol in the blood.
The results “suggest that just measuring HDL levels isn’t enough to figure out what’s going on,” says Jay Heinecke, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who wrote an editorial comment on the research in the same issue of the journal. “It opens up the idea that there’s a lot we don’t know about HDL.”