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Just found out Lpa is extremely high — other risks OK
Heart & Blood Health | Last Active: Jan 14 6:17am | Replies (19)Comment receiving replies
Hi. I'm 51 and just got my results from my Lipoprotein A and it's 588! I haven't talked to my cardiologist yet. He's out of the office this week. I recently went to the cardiologist because I've been having random 1x a day high heart rates. It's reached 200s but the usual high is about 150 with normal daily activity. I haven't been exercising because Im worried it'll get too high. So the Dr told me its sinus tachycardia and didn't seem concerned. He suggested the blood test because of my family history. My grandmother died at 54 from heart disease. My mother had her first stroke in her late 30s/ early 40s snd has had several stent surgeries. They are/were both smokers. I'll be having a stress test this week and have an Echo and CT scheduled for January. It is scary. I definitely want to break the cycle. I need to be more active and lose some weight. I'm vegetarian but still need to eat healthier. I'm hoping my Cardiologist will have some good guidance.
Replies to "@jp1234 Hi. I'm 51 and just got my results from my Lipoprotein A and it's 588!..."
@ami74
Check your fasting insulin and Glucose and A1c. See if you have Insulin resistance. Intimately connected to heart disease.
Fasting insulin: Not over 7. Preferably 5-6
Glucose: Under 100, preferably in the 80's.
A1c: Under 6.5, preferably 5.5 or lower.
If you have high numbers you must change your diet and reduce your carb and sugar intake.
CT scan coming up. I hope that's a CT angiogram. That will tell you have much soft plaque-the dangerous kind- you have in your coronary arteries.
Also, get a coronary calcium score test done, commonly called your CAC score. Not expensive. Might have to pay out of pocket. It will tell tyou how much cacified plaque your arteries have. The lower the # the better. Also, a NMR blood lipid profile blood test will tell you a lot about your good & bad blood Cholesterol fractions. Very revealing details overlooked by most cardiologists. Not expensive.
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Hi, @ami74
Sorry to hear about your lp(a) number. It sounds like you are ready to fight it. I've been on my own journey against bad genetics. I got a high CAC score seemingly out of the blue despite a pretty healthy lifestyle - not overweight, running 4 or 5 times a week for 20+ miles, mostly mediterranean diet. My mother had a triple bypass in her early 60s. I assumed it was her lifestyle and assumed I was protected by my lifestyle. My lp(a) is high (but not as high as yours). At any rate, while I was trolling these boards, someone mentioned the book "Beat the Heart Attack Gene". It's not a scientific text of course, and the author has money at stake so it has to be taken with a little caution, yet I found it to be very helpful. It provided pointers that I could look into to try to protect myself as best I can. I believe most of what he says was supported by the medical literature of the time and I tried to read about what he mentioned independently so as not to act on the information from one person. It's (reasonably I guess) more comprehensive than the information I received from my cardiologist.
Good luck!