Totally recommend “outlives” by Peter Attia! I just finished reading it a month ago and I started an exercise routine that has changed my life at 68. LP.a means that you inherited a familial mutation for heart disease folks!!!! it does not mean that you express it!!!! Every test is an “indicator“. It means nothing by itself. None of the tests do! They’re all indicators alone. What means everything is the condition of your heart and arteries as in photographs of them. The photographs and a qualified cardiologistwill tell you if you have heart disease.
I have it and it runs in my family and people were having their first stroke, heart attack attacks, and death in their late 50s. Thank goodness I have always eaten right, exercised as best I could and taken care of my health. I have had ALL the tests. I have all the scores of the lipid panels. I have seen a cardiologist specialist. I can’t take statins nor do I want to because I don’t think they prevent plaque from laying down in your arteries, but I get the injections of LEVQIO twice a year. What matters is the snapshot of your heart and arteries. Then armed with that, you can look at the numbers from the tests and your expert cardiologist can determine a path for you.
Strangely, you can have one really bad score and then have another really great score on something else and until you’ve had a gazillion million scores of tests the unique situation for you individually can’t be pieced together. So relax and make sure you have a good cardiologist to rely on.
What you have to differentiate is what is in your control going forward and what is not in your control. Taking care of your health in eating low-fat diets and exercising even if it’s walking and breathing every day is going to do everything within your means to keep your heart and arteries in their best shape. Taking whatever medications the doctors think is best for you and seeing a cardiologist once a year as your age will determine your own unique path fortunately, for me, I came from great grandparents all of them that lived well into their mid and late 90s — on both sides. Each generation after lost a decade on their longevity. Heart disease doesn’t need to shorten your life if you pay attention to guarding your health. The lean diet my great grandparents had because of their hard life and the amount of activity that was required. (they had no cars!) the fresh fruits and vegetables, and non-processed diet they ate, kept them all living extraordinary, long lives in good health, even though they obviously had the disease because it was found in my genetic mutations. Hang in there, adopt good habits, learn as much as you can and don’t worry!