Asked & Answered Podcast
The Texas Heart Institute Center for Cardiovascular Care's general and interventional cardiologist, Dr. Alexander Postalian, answers patients' questions about cardiovascular health.
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Asked and Answered.
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Asked & Answered Podcast
My doctors checked my lipoprotein(a) and it was SKY HIGH. Am I doomed? What does this mean?
Dr. Alexander Postalian explains what Lipoprotein A is, why it's important, and what it means for your heart health. He also discusses the future of treatments for Lipoprotein A and what you can do to stay healthy in the meantime.
Read More: https://www.texasheart.org/heart-health/heart-information-center/topics/total-cholesterol/
Watch the full video here.
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Unknown
my doctors checked my lipoprotein a and it was sky high caps. Am I doomed? What does this mean? Lipoprotein A is a new type of bad cholesterol
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Unknown
that doesn't usually pop up
00:00:14:19 - 00:00:18:07
Unknown
in the standard lab orders that we typically do,
00:00:18:08 - 00:00:31:17
Unknown
and it's actually quite important. One particle of lipoprotein A is about six times worse, more pathogenic than the usual LDL particle, which is our standard bad cholesterol.
00:00:31:20 - 00:00:33:03
Unknown
Now, what do we do when we check in?
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Unknown
It is a one more check mark in your profile. Like having family history of heart disease, having,
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Unknown
bad habits, versus eating poorly, etc. it's one more thing that we consider
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Unknown
when we're making decisions as to how aggressive we want to be with lowering your bad cholesterol, lowering your sugar, lowering your blood pressure, giving you more or less medication.
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Unknown
There are no drugs to specifically lower
00:01:00:00 - 00:01:03:09
Unknown
LPA available commercially, yet
00:01:03:09 - 00:01:14:22
Unknown
we are there multiple clinical trials ongoing for this. So this is something that's going to come in the future. And I think it's the next frontier is going to be a big change for preventative and medicine.
00:01:14:22 - 00:01:18:04
Unknown
However, they're likely going to be expensive.
00:01:18:04 - 00:01:21:06
Unknown
Not all patients are going to meet criteria to be on it.
00:01:22:00 - 00:01:38:16
Unknown
probably we're going to start with patients at high risk patients that have had heart attacks, patients that have had strokes. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the medication to become available. But I do know that if you have a high level protein A, you should be more careful about prevention going forward.
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