CommonHealth

It seemed to make perfect sense. If HDL cholesterol is good, then higher levels of HDL are better, right? Alas, no, according to a potentially game-changing study published in the medical journal The Lancet. As things tend to go in medicine, it’s far more complicated.

Researchers at The Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital found that people with higher genetic levels of the good cholesterol HDL don’t necessarily have more protection or a lower risk of heart disease.

Here’s the Broad’s video explainer.

And the crux of the findings are summarized in this news release:

What they found was surprising. Individuals who carried a particular variation in a gene called endothelial lipase had HDL levels that were elevated about 6mg/dl, or 10% — a change expected to decrease heart attack risk by about 13%. However, these individuals showed no difference in their risk of heart disease compared to people without the variant. Continue reading →