THERE ARE MANY misconceptions about important cardiovascular metrics. Often people think their risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases is tied up with their total cholesterol numbers. In fact, total cholesterol is barely more relevant to your cardiovascular risk than your eye color or your dog’s name. Even HDL cholesterol (what many erroneously call “good” cholesterol) doesn’t mean much to your overall risk profile.
When I look at a person’s blood panel for the first time, my eyes immediately dart to two numbers: apoB and Lp(a). Numerous people have never heard of them, but these two tell me the most when it comes to predicting risk of ASCVD (atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, the overall name for heart and cardiovascular diseases). Here’s what to ask for the next time you get your blood tested.
An apoB Test
YOUR IDEAL apo B TEST RESULT: 30 to 40 mg/dL—approximately the level it would be for a child (60 is the ceiling).
ApoB is short for apolipoprotein B, and evidence strongly indicates that concentrations of it are far more predictive of cardiovascular-disease risk than the more widely known metric of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. ApoB is a kind of cellular wrapper for LDL and every lipoprotein that contributes to ASCVD, including very low-density lipoprotein, or VLDL.
