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by malfist 220 days ago
His evidence is also kinda weak. And appeal to authority largely about someone who he's paying to tell him he has health problems. The incentives aren't aligned.

I also disagree that the 50the percentile is the breakpoint between healthy and unhealthy. There's a lot more to deciding those ranges beside "well half of the population has better numbers"

2 comments

ApoB is a better indicator of heart problems and his ApoB was bad, unlike his LDL-C. ApoB is not some imaginary thing made up by a quack doctor.
Even his LDL-C is bad. 116/119 are both out of range by most lab testing standards and the top end of range already allows for plaque deposition.
That LDL-C is considered normal, what are you talking about. 160 is when doctors start being concerned.
That is an out of range value for the two largest testing labs in the USA - Quest and Labcorp. Their upper end is 100.

https://testdirectory.questdiagnostics.com/test/test-detail/...

https://www.labcorp.com/tests/120295/low-density-lipoprotein...

If you think a 100+ LDL-C is normal you're basing things off of significantly outdated information.

Expect the normal range to drop in the coming years as well - the AHA and NLA have both been talking about how this needs to go lower, and the science is robust. See my other comments for study links, the NLA's latest guidance, etc.

If your doctor is only getting concerned at 160+, find a new doctor.

You may have missed the stat that 30% of the population that’s the median of will die of heart disease. You don’t want to be at the median.
100% of the population will die of something.

If I die at 90 of a heart attack havjng maintained the ability to live independently up until then, I’d take that as a massive win compared to my relatives suffering through a decade of me with worsening dementia.

Cardiovascular diseases are huge risk factors for dementia, so if your goal is to avoid dementia you should try to have a healthy cardiovascular system.
If health science was as simple as health outcomes are proportional to one or two measurement percentiles, sure. But that's hardly true. Health is a lot more complex than that and the disease risk cannot be quantified by a small number of parameters