If you want to reduce heart disease, you need an LPP® from Spectracell
Heart disease is still the number one cause of death in America, despite the fact that most Americans are very familiar with cholesterol testing. You commonly hear “I had my cholesterol checked” and it’s normal. Or, “My cholesterol is high so my doctor put me on a statin.” Then, most Americans will (falsely) believe your risk for a heart attack is lowered. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps the main blood test used for assessing heart disease risk is just, wrong?
Cholesterol tests don’t tell the whole story. In fact, they are grossly misleading. The technology for cholesterol test is decades old and newer, more accurate laboratory testing is available at comparable cost and convenience. Never underestimate the power of momentum, even if that momentum is an outdated, inaccurate, misleading diagnostic test that missed half the people at risk of heart disease for which it is designed to help. The days of cholesterol testing are numbered. As they should be. You deserve a blood test that is more accurate that actually empowers you to lower your heart disease risk. That’s where the LPP® comes in.
What is LPP®?
LPP® stands for Lipoprotein Particle Profile, which is a specialized blood test that assesses risk for heart disease AND what to do about it. It is a replacement for the outdated, and often misleading cholesterol test. LPP® measures the various lipoproteins in your blood, which is important because lipoproteins are what cause heart attacks and strokes, not cholesterol. But not all lipoproteins are equal – some are helpful, and some are incredibly dangerous. The LPP® will tell you which ones you have.
Cholesterol is the “spackle” that fixes arterial damage.
Cholesterol is a substance in our cells that serves several functions – building cell walls, making sex hormones, repairing arteries, for example. The latter of these functions is where cholesterol gets a bad reputation, albeit unfairly. Cholesterol is a sticky substance that is used to “patch” the walls of an artery that has been damaged – sort of like spackling the wall in your house when the sheetrock gets a hole in it. So the real problem is the damage to the artery (the hole in the wall), not the cholesterol (the “spackle”) needed to patch it. Cholesterol is simply the biological “spackle” or “glue” or “paste” or whatever analogy suits you. The cholesterol forms a scab on the inside of the blood vessel. So, often where there is a lot of cholesterol localized in an artery, there is a lot of damage. This can eventually cause blockages (atherosclerosis), or become hard (arteriosclerosis), or form a blood clot (thrombosis).
Lipoproteins cause the trouble, but cholesterol gets blamed.
Lipoproteins are small lipid spheres (think of a hollow rubber ball) that carry cholesterol in the body. Really small lipoproteins act like bee bees to the arterial wall, scratching it and causing damage. Then cholesterol is sent in to patch up this damage. The underlying problem in is the damage to the artery, caused by lipoproteins (and other things like high blood sugar, smoking, inflammation, etc). The vascular damage (the cause) leads to cholesterol build up (the symptom). Cholesterol is not damaging the artery. It is actually trying to repair it.
Proof that cholesterol tests are completely misleading.
Consider this startling statistic: 50% who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol.1,2,3 That means HALF of the cholesterol tests done in medicine will not tell whether or not you are at risk of a heart attack, which is exactly what they allegedly supposed to do. This is why the lipoprotein particle profile test should replace standard cholesterol tests.
Which lipoproteins do you have – healthy or harmful?
LPP® measures your lipoproteins, not your cholesterol, and it tells you the whole range of lipoproteins found in your blood. It is quite comprehensive but in a nutshell, LPP® tells you if you have the dangerous type or healthy type. There are very unique types of lipoproteins that are particularly dangerous, all of which are included in the LPP® panel.
Cholesterol testing isn’t even close.
Then why is cholesterol testing so popular?
The fact that lipoproteins (versus the cholesterol they contain) are what actually cause atherosclerosis has been well established decades ago. But cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been framed a “cholesterol issue” simply because there was no commercial technology for measuring lipoprotein particles until recently. Technology for measuring cholesterol has been widely available for years, so “cholesterol” became synonymous with CVD, when really it is only a surrogate marker. But now that lipoprotein measuring technology is widely available and the cost is comparable to standard cholesterol testing, cholesterol tests are considered very outdated at best, and misleading at worst.
