About ldl cholesterol calc and resolving related problems

Get to know about ldl cholesterol calc (i.e. how to calculate ldl). Also in the following paragraphs you will find out the problems that come out during the calculation and how to resolve them.

First of all I want to remind you that in 1960s, the LDL cholesterol levels couldn't be measured. Meanwhile, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides levels can be measured.

In lack of possibilities to measure ldl cholesterol, it came out the this lipoprotein was very important and was strongly related to atherosclerosis and heart disease. So, Dr.Friedewald, a well known lipid researcher at the National Institutes of Health, proposed a method to calculate LDL cholesterol.

His method was easy : just to extract the sum of hdl and triglycerides levels from the total cholesterol level:

LDL cholesterol = Total cholesterol - HDL cholesterol - triglycerides/5

This formula is well known and has been used for several years from physicians and cardiologists. However, National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) guidelines recommend development of direct assays for LDL cholesterol measurement, but it is still unclear how these assays compare with the above ldl cholesterol calc formula in predicting cardiovascular disease (CVD).

What is more there are still limitations to this method. This might be because when using this calculation method, the samples must be collected after fasting at least 12 hours and you cannot calculate ldl if your plasma triglyeride is >4.52 mmol/L (400 mg/dL).

Another problem comes out when you have elevated total cholesterol and triglyceride levels. In this case the formula must be modified and be used in the following way:

LDL-C = Total C-HDL-(0.16xTrig)

The LDL levels are expressed in mg/dl. And of course, for most people, this formula can provide approximate levels with fair accuracy for the majority of people. However, it is still unclear why episodes of heart events do happen when estimated ldl levels are low.

That's why direct assays for measuring ldl cholesterol. The most important thing for you is to keep optimized ldl as lower as you can. On the other hand, I recommend you to talk with your doctor each time you see something “wrong” in your lipid profile, especially if a ldl cholesterol calc formula is used.

Keep firm. Stay healthy. Go for nature.

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