This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, LMNT, and Cozy Earth.

Heart disease is still the number one killer in the world, yet most people don’t actually understand what markers put them most at risk. 

The general consensus is there are two types of cholesterol—the good and the bad—the good is thought to be high-density lipoproteins or HDL, and the bad is low-density lipoproteins or LDL. But we now know from research that it's much more complicated than that—there are actually various sizes and densities of these lipoproteins. 

Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I’m excited to talk to one of the leading lipidologists, Dr. Ronald Krauss, all about lipoproteins, what they do in the body, what they mean for heart disease risk, and why a typical lipid panel alone is insufficient.

Dr. Krauss is a Senior Scientist at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, a Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and an Adjunct Professor of Nutritional Sciences at UC Berkeley. Dr. Krauss’s research aims to understand how to best prevent cardiovascular disease through early detection and management of its major risk factors: most notably, elevated levels of blood cholesterol and lipoproteins. He has published over 450 research articles and reviews on metabolic, genetic, dietary, and drug effects on plasma lipoproteins and the risk of coronary artery disease, with over 100,000 citations of this work.

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Here are more details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):

• How Dr. Krauss came to understand how cholesterol actually impacts the risk of heart disease (5:00 / 2:44)
• What is cholesterol? (9:00 / 6:37) 
• Statins as heart disease treatment (13:36 / 11:29) 
• Combatting myths around saturated fat (14:42 / 12:37) 
• The assay Dr. Krauss developed to differentiate between the different sizes of lipoproteins and what they mean for heart disease risk (29:58 / 25:40)
• Testing beyond the standard lipid panel (39:51 / 35:31)
• Insulin resistance, prediabetes, and heart disease (46:35 / 41:50) 
• Personal variation in heart disease risk (52:52 / 48:34) 
• Dietary approaches to preventing heart disease (1:01:07 / 56:56) 

Research mentioned in this episode