The relationship between Lp(a) and cardiovascular disease| Masterjohn Q&A Files #09

Question: "Lp(a) and genetic component with relation to cholesterol and risk of cardiovascular disease."

First, I'm going to be able to give better answers to questions if they're more specific. 

But to the question: Everyone seems to think that Lp(a) causes heart disease. I don't believe it.

I don't believe it because the function of Lp(a) is to clean up oxidized LDL particles. It might have other roles, but that's one of the primary ones.

So, we have two possible explanations for the correlation between Lp(a) and heart disease. Either Lp(a) causes heart disease and people with genetically elevated levels have a higher risk of heart disease, or it is correlated simply because people with more oxidized LDL particles (which does cause heart disease) have more Lp(a) to clean them up.

I’ll be recording with Peter Attia on this topic, so I’ll brush up on Lp(a) data beforehand and may change my viewpoint, but this is my view right now. If anyone wants to send me data to look at to revise my view, I'll happily take a look.

This Q&A can also be found as part of a much longer episode, here:https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/podcast/2019/02/09/ask-anything-nutrition-feb-1-2019/ 

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Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.