Patient Pulse

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Understanding cholesterol is an important part of understanding your risk of heart disease and stroke.  Your total cholesterol is made up of LDL (The bad cholesterol), HDL (the good cholesterol) and Triglycerides (which are also bad).  Since it is made up of both bad and good parts, total cholesterol can be misleading.  In this episode we introduce, Non-HDL cholesterol and Apolipoprotein B as better measures of cardiac risk since they are the bad things we want to avoid.  We also discuss, Lipoprotein a or Lp(a) as a very important, but not usually measured, factor that is found in many people with family histories of heart disease.

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At Patients First, we aim to improve understanding of difficult topics in cardiology and medicine in general.  Easy enough for the layman, but detailed enough for someone who wants to know more about their condition or that of a loved one.  This first episode introduces the topic of outcomes based research and evidence based medicine.  It also discusses the important concept of NNT: Number Needed to Treat ie we have to treat 50 people for 2 years to avoid 1 event as an important indicator of efficacy of therapy.  These concepts will be referred to in future podcasts