New Answer to Dave Feldman's Lipid Challenge

For the Full story LINK

CASE STUDY of Man who developed coronary plaque with:

Fasting lipid panel:

total cholesterol: 174 (last year 178; “desirable”)<200 span="">

HDL: 60 (last year 56; 40);

LDL: 101 (last year 100; “optimal”<100 b="">, “desirable”/“near optimal”<130 span="">

total cholesterol/HDL ratio 2.9 (last year 3.2);

Triglycerides: 61 (last year 71;

Dave's Criteria for his challenge:

So here’s the criteria, pure and simple — all of which must be met for a given group in the submitted study:

1. HDL Cholesterol of 50 mg/dL or above ( greater than 1.29 mmol/L) Check for President Bush
2. Triglycerides of 100 mg/dL or below (greater than 1.13 mmol/L) Check for President Bush
3. LDL Cholesterol of 130 mg/dL or above (greater than 3.36 mmol/L) His LDLc was 101 which is not optimal and high for someone with CAC of 4
4. Either high Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) or high Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) (see the section below) Bush got a stent for his lesion
5. By “normal” and “non-treated“, I mean:
   • No stratifying by specific genetics None
   • No stratifying by drugs (no drug studies) Was on low dose but soon taken off
   • No stratifying by a particular illness in advance of the study. (duh!) No
   • In other words, just a generally broad group of people like Framingham Offspring or the Jeppesen study
6. And here’s some fine print that should be obvious, but just in case…
   • The study needs to be published in a reputable journal New York Times
   • It has to be dated before this article was posted, of course Yes
   • The study needs to have at least 400 participants that are stratified by this criteria. (The two studies above have over 500) Just a Black Swan
   • I’d prefer no unusual “modeling” or “adjustments” to alter the data too far from it’s original set. This one goes by the honor system — if you have such a study and it is clearly warranted, I can give it a pass.

What is Considered High Rates of CVD or CHD?

The most recent statistics I was able to find on Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) comes from National Center for Health Statistics and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Their data is reflected in this article from Harvard Health Publishing, Heart Disease: A Guide to Preventing and Treating Coronary Artery Disease.

This may not meet Dave's criteria but it is certainly a BLACK SWAN
in his theory of

High HDLc & Low TG being:

PROTECTIVE FROM CVD