Your cholesterol panel can look completely normal and still miss the cardiovascular risk that lands people in the hospital. Almost half of heart attack patients have an LDL under 100. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through the five markers that reveal what your standard lipid panel was never designed to see.

I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician, and today we’re talking about why so many people with normal cholesterol still develop heart disease. The standard lipid panel measures cholesterol inside LDL particles, but it doesn’t count the particles themselves, and it doesn’t see inflammation, genetic risk, or insulin resistance. Those are the hidden drivers where real cardiovascular risk often lives. I’ll walk you through each one, what test reveals it, what the numbers mean, and exactly what to ask your doctor. I’ll also share a calculation you can do tonight, using numbers already in your last lab report, that gives you a free window into your metabolic health.

What you’ll learn:

* Why apoB (apolipoprotein B) is a more accurate measure of cardiovascular risk than LDL cholesterol

* What Lp(a), or lipoprotein(a), is, why one in five adults has elevated levels, and why to test it once in your lifetime

* How hs-CRP reveals the chronic inflammation behind atherosclerosis and heart disease

* Why fasting insulin and HOMA-IR catch insulin resistance years before fasting glucose rises

* The free TG/HDL ratio calculation you can run tonight from your most recent lipid panel

* Lifestyle medicine strategies for improving every marker, from dietary patterns to resistance training and sleep

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/why-do-so-many-heart-attacks-happen

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