The is test was/is totally ignored by cardiologist as you will read in the article I am sending you.
Maybe….because there is no good drug for it.
I have tried Niacin in high doses [which sometimes can give a nasty side effect which is not dangerous : FLUSHING…GETTING RED WITH ITCHING which can last for 5 to 30 minutes or so]
I suppose it might reduce mortality even if it often did not reduce Lp[a] very much in the patients I treated.
The few people who used it-Baruch Ha-Shem had no cardiac events.
Niacin is only available in Israel as 100 mg [so has to be ordered from the USA]
As the kupot cholim often refused to examine Lp[a] [or often the doctors did not know what it was] I stopped asking for this or sent the patient to a private lab [Rambam laboratories on reh Hillel 16 in Jerusalem]
As it seems there is a new drug on the market which may help.
I have -as yet-no experience with this and hopefully, the side-effects will “weigh up” against reduced mortality
Evolocumab (Repatha) reduces both LDL and Lp(a) and in your case may be helpful against heart disease (Circulation, March 19, 2019).
A LONG TIME AGO I SENT THE MAIL BELOW:
Cholesterol: “the magic word” [ resent from 2009]
To prevent spending a whole evening on this subject, I will try to make it short.
Most of all what is going on in this field was created by human beings [food -and pharmaceutical industry] to create a huge market for their interests.
Butter was “banned” because patented margarine’s had to be pushed on the market,
eggs were “devils” , because all kind of artificial replacements had to be marketed instead, again with a patent-name and this has been going on for the last 40 years or more.
One thing is clear: all this has been shown to be huge nonsense promoted by a corrupted industry and doctors were easily influenced because they were [are??] absolute an an-alphabetic when it comes to basic nutrition.
Sometimes it was not naivety but just nice commercial interests from the same doctors.
The “statins” [anticholesterol drugs-antilipids] area entered…………. the corruption and falsifications reached an all height.
Of course, there is a clear statistical relation between cardiovascular diseases and blood lipids but the subject are too complicated to be dealt with here and for this we need unblemished scientists………….and along story.
A short remark: for years I have been asking people with a risky history to do a blood test called: Lp [a] = lipoprotein [a].
This test is probably the most reliable one to know the risk factors concerning blood lipids [fats].
As far as I am aware of the kupat cholim meuchedet is the only Kupa which performs/performed this test without much fuss [it should be done fasting: 12 hours, water allowed]
A high level [the higher the level] …………….reason to relate to “cholesterol”
A low level…………carry on eating healthy and walking etc
To prevent “self-doctoring” [and also not everything is yet fully known] I don’t mention here values.
The price of doing this test privately in Meuchedet is more or less 70 shekel.
In case there is a real problem then likely the only medicine that will do good is: NIACIN [eating regularly fistukim-pistachios is very useful here]
A VERY SAFE MEDICINE but with some nasty [non dangerous] side effects in the beginning like flushing and itching.
You may hear much more about this in the future.
If you do have a strong family history of cardiovascular diseases then ask your doctor for this test.
Addition: since then we have been performing also more and more homocysteine tests for people with possible cardiovascular issues.[the treatment here is very simple and can save many serious complications]
medicine from harold jitschak bueno de mesquita 