Lipoprotein(a), also known as Lp(a) and pronounced “L P little-a”, is a type of Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) that can significantly increase the risk of having cardiovascular disease (CVD).
And at least as I understand it, it is among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, of the lipoprotein risk factors to address with drugs, supplements, or diet. It is a genetic abnormality that is passed on from a parent having an elevated Lp(a) level to his or her children.
Too bad for me and two of my three kids then as well as about 25% of people living in the UnitedStates. For most of the period since I first realized the severity of the CVD I had, I sub-consciously believed that my only real problem was my high Lp(a) blood test value.
Stupid me. It wasn’t my only lipoprotein problem.
(images courtesy of Sally)
Dr. William Davis, to my knowledge more credible than anyone else on the subject of what it takes to reduce an existing coronary plaque burden, has also written that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reduce coronary artery plaque without correcting Lp(a) levels.
I take Dr. Davis seriously so I guess I need to take Lp(a) reduction seriously.
Dr. Sally McCormick of the Otago University Department of Biochemistry in New Zealand has been doing research on Lp(a) for more than a decade. I’ll be discussing what I understand about her work and its significance in a few posts in the near future.
For now, for starters, I just want to call your attention to two significant articles she has either written or led teams to write.
In 2004, in the Journal of Lipid Research, Dr. McCormick and her team published their research in an article entitled Structural features of apolipoprotein B synthetic peptides that inhibit lipoprotein(a) assembly. Quite a mouthful huh? Well, it seems to me that this article has to be one of the most significant pieces of research related to CVD this past decade.
Dr. McCormick, also in 2004, published an article in Clinical Biochemist Reviews entitled Lipoprotein(a): Biology and clinical importance. To my knowledge, this is still the most important summary of what is known about the Lp(a) molecule. It includes the best set of Lp(a) related references I’ve seen anywhere.
Not being a doctor or a scientist myself, I’ve poured over these articles more times than I can count. I think I’m at a place now where I can take a crack at explaining their general content to readers here. There is also a lot I don’t understand about the content of these articles and I’ll try to explain the questions I have as well.
Finally, no introduction to a discussion of Lp(a) can be complete without a note about the Pauling/Rath theory of heart disease being mostly or entirely a result of the activity of the Lp(a) molecule. If you google “lipoprotein(a)”–and by the way, you need to include the quotation marks because google will strip them out if you don’t–a significant number of the hits on the first few pages will reference this theory.
I’ve had my ups and downs about what to think about these ideas and the implicated treatments often called “Pauling Therapy.” For now, I’ll just say that the ideas are important but that the dominance of a multi-level marketing company in promoting them is a cause for caution. There are quite a few misleading, if not factual incorrect statements being spread in the work of this multi-level marketing company under the guise of “Pauling Therapy.” This is unfortunate because there are many unsuspecting people who want to have a solution to a problem (their high Lp(a)) for which their doctor says there is no solution.
Because I believe that there are significant factual errors and other misleading information being spread as part of “Pauling Therapy” content out on the ‘net, I’m not going to provide a link to it until I post about what I think you need to be wary of when you read about it.
In multiple posts to follow, I’ll take a stab at getting my understanding and confusion about all this written up and published here.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:44 am
[…] I was reviewing Dr. Sally McCormick’s literature review article on Lp(a) that I referenced in my last post the other day and came across this gem. Lp(a) levels are generally very resistant to changes in diet, although […]
November 28th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
[…] In my posts to follow (over a period of time) about Lp(a), I’ll summarize points from this article as well as the McCormick overview article referenced in a previous post. […]