Lipid Luminations

Guidelines are being changed continuously as new evidence is acquired and our environment us evolve. Most recently released are the NHLBI guidelines for pediatric care providers. Host Dr. Alan Brown welcomes Dr. Samuel Gidding. They will address the context to which the guidelines were developed, some of the key social and ethical issues faced by the panel, and a review of the results and the recommendations for the future. Dr. Samuel Gidding is the head of pediatric cardiology and interim director of heart failure and transplant at Nemours Cardiac Center, A. I. DuPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, Delaware.

Recently, the FDA released data that claimed some the adverse events of statin therapy may lead to diabetes. But, how great are those adverse events? Should physicians and their patients have great concern? Listen in as Dr. Alan Brown welcomes Dean Bramlett, MD as they discuss statin safety, statin toxicity and the overall effectiveness of statins. Dr. Bramlett is the medical director of the Heart and Lipid Institute of Florida in St. Petersburg, Florida; and, assistant consultant professor at Duke University.

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Host Dr. Alan Brown is joined by Peter P. Toth, MD, PhD, director of preventive cardiology in Sterling Rock Falls Clinic and clinical professor at the University of Illinois School of Medicine in Peoria, Illinois. Dr. Toth is the current president of the National Lipid Association.

One of the most intensively studied drugs are statins. However, will statins continue to be the miracle drugs that health care professionals and patients rely on? What are statins current role in therapy for dyslipidemia patients? In this discussion, Dr. Toth will address these questions. He will also review the new therapies for lowering LDL and whether LDL should continue to be the target for risk assessment and treatment.

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Host Dr. Alan Brown welcomes Benjamin Ansell, MD, professor of medicine and cardiology at University of Califronia at Los Angeles, CA and co-director of the Cholesterol and Hypertension Management Program at UCLA. Dr. Ansell reviews the latest trials: dal-OUTCOMES and AIM-HIGH. Dr. Ansell will address the objectives and study designs of both studies and explain why the studies were stopped early. Drs. Brown and Ansell also discuss the future of HDL therapy.

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Statins play a critical role in reducing the risk of heart disease. Not only are the benefits greatly appreciated by both physicians and patients, the majority of statins are also well tolerated. Despite this, many patients discontinue statin therapy against medical advice, oftentimes without notifying their doctors. For this reason, the National Lipid Association embarked on a study that used internet surveys to determine why patients discontinue their statins. This was called the USAGE Study, and its results are the subject of this discussion. Host, Dr. Alan Brown welcomes Dr. Jerome Cohen, emeritus professor of Internal Medicine at St. Louis University School of Medicine.

For more information on the USAGE survey, including resources for patients and healthcare providers, please visit the USAGE website at www.StatinUSAGE.com.

The Food and Drug Administration has warned that patients taking cholesterol-fighting statins face a small increase in the risk of higher blood-sugar levels and of being diagnosed with diabetes. There has been conflicting information from several large trials about the effects of statin therapy on the development of diabetes and glycemic control.

Join host Dr. Alan Brown and Dr. Spencer Kroll, diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology and a board certified Internist. He also serves on the board of directors of the Northeast Lipid Association and runs The Cholesterol Treatment Center, a lipid clinic in Marlboro, New Jersey.

Dr. Janet Maxon and host Alan Brown discuss the latest thinking on hormone replacement therapy, heart disease and the menopausal woman. They discuss the results of recent clinical trials, as well as when to initiate therapy, and side effects.

Given that approximately one third of Americans currently have some degree of metabolic syndrome, host Dr. Alan Brown discusses the very pertinent topics of food intake, prevention, lowering lipids, and related diet issues with dietician Mary Felando. They discuss what an appropriate diet is, how physicians should react when there are changes in nutritional guidelines, and the relative importance of saturated and other dietary fats.

Is there a difference between biomarker cardiovascular risk assessment for broad population studies vs the role in personalized medicine? And, in individual patients, if a difference is found between the Framingham score and the biomarker risk assessment, which is more likely to correctly predict risk? Host Dr. Alan Brown talks with Dr. Michael Davidson, director of preventive cardiology and associate vice chairman for continuing medical education at the University of Chicago, about the role of biomarkers in improving cardiovascular risk prediction and guiding treatment, compared to traditional risk factor assessment.

Host Dr. Alan Brown continues his series of conversations demystifying familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), this week with Dr. Paul Hopkins, co-director of cardiovascular genetics and director of the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Clinic at the University of Utah. They define FH from a genetics perspective, and discuss genetic causes, prevalence, populations with higher prevalence, and screening guidelines.