They are really adamant about lowering LDL

[ctviggen]

https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2026/03/13/15/20/acc-aha-release-new-clinical-guideline-for-managing-dyslipidemia

Do I see a child there?

You could be 30 and on statins…for life.

[Bellyman]

I’m not surprised. They’re pushing back. They wanna sell their drugs. They wanna scare people into being legal drug addicts for their entire lives. They set ridiculous standards that no healthy person typically meets and then bully / threaten them until they give in and start taking those drugs.

[VirginiaEdie]

ACC/American Heart Association Issue Updated Guideline for Managing Lipids,...

LDL-C cholesterol and non-HDL-C goals are back in the new guideline. To prevent a first heart attack or stroke, the LDL-C goal should be less than 100 mg/dL for those at borderline or intermediate risk and less than 70 mg/dL in those at high risk. For individuals with ASCVD who are at very high risk of ASCVD events, the LDL-C goal should be less than 55 mg/dL for secondary prevention of cardiac events.

“In general, lower LDL is better, especially for people at increased risk for a heart attack or stroke,” said Pamela B. Morris, MD, FACC, FAHA, vice-chair of the guideline writing committee and the Paul V. Palmer chair of cardiovascular disease prevention and director of the Seinsheimer Cardiovascular Health Program at The Medical University of South Carolina. “Clinical trials have clearly demonstrated significant benefits for reduction in cardiovascular events when LDL-C levels are even lower than recommended in previous guidelines.”

If LDL-C levels are not adequately lowered by healthy lifestyle habits and statin therapy, which remains the foundation of lipid-lowering and risk reduction, the guideline recommends the addition of non-statin therapies. Depending upon the level of risk and patient characteristics, evidence-based options include ezetimibe and/or bempedoic acid (a newer oral agent) or a PCSK9 monoclonal antibody, an injectable therapy. Inclisiran, another injectable option that requires less frequent injections, is still being studied in clinical trials to determine whether the associated LDL-C lowering translates into better outcomes and fewer cardiac events.

I wonder if there is ever going to be an LDL number that is considered low enough. It seems like the medical (?), drug (?) establishment would like our LDL to be zero. And if you can’t get it low enough, there are even more therapies you can do.

In one of Ben Bikman’s metabolic classroom podcasts, he referenced a paper about how triglyceride to HDL ratio is a much better predictor of heart disease than LDL. I will try to find it, and post it.

I’m curious to see the trials that showed even lower levels of LDL demonstrated significant benefit.

[ctviggen]

I’ve seen people who think LDL should be near zero. I also am curious about the studies showing lower LDL is better, because there’s at least one study using two levels of the same drug where LDL was different but the outcomes were not.

There’s also a study where LDL and Lp(a) were poor indicators:

So much for ApoB and Lp(a) and LDL being the bad guys

The highest hazard ratio for ApoB is about 2. (Oddly, these are in reverse order of ages: one would expect >75 to have a higher hazard ratio, but < 55 has the highest. My guess: FH, familial hypercholesterolemia, which gets lumped in with high ApoB.) LDL and Lp(a) are below 2. Compare that with diabetes or metabolic syndrome: [image] Here’s the study: Edit: If you’re unfamiliar with “hazard ratios”, the higher the number above 1, the higher the risk. Numbers below 1 indicate lower risk,…

Not sure if this is the way to post a link to a topic here or not.

[scaperdude]

Do I see a child there?

Sadly, teens are getting cardiovascular plaque. So, naturally the way to solve that is to screen for LDL while they are kids - rather than change their diet. Yeah, let’s continue to feed them GMO pasta, potato chips and soda for school lunch, and put them on statins…

I’ve seen people who think LDL should be near zero.

Yeah - they’ll be dead people… We simply have to have LDL to make our cells, etc. That’s why the liver makes it. It is essentially the 4rth macronutrient ie cholesterol that is. We just don’t have to eat it because our livers make it from fat - because we HAVE to have it…LOL. Fats and cholesterol are necessary for brain development. I believe giving statins to teenagers will result in dummer future populations… except for the children of pharmaceutical execs who won’t receive them.

[lfod14]

Except it’s not that simple, all that stuff is real when you’re the majority eating SAD, keto’rs like to forget that.

If you follow that stuff, a LOT of it is changing, between the food pyramid getting better, a lot of that drug crap is changing as well thanks to the head of the FDA who wants the drug companies to take tons of them off prescription, which will end a lot of the used car salesmen like tactics that drug reps pull with doctors. It will also stop the gatekeeping of people having access to things that they don’t without paying vig to the doctors via office visits etc.

They’re a business, so yes they want to sell their drugs, but a lot of how it is now is a downstream effect of what the FDA and NIH do to them via literally extortion, which is also changing. Things are getting better, but it’s not going to be overnight.