The Most Important Tests to Assess Your Risk of Heart Disease That Your Doctor Doesn’t Check with Dr. Ronald Krauss

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, LMNT,
and Cozy Earth. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the
world, yet most people don’t actually understand what markers put
them most at risk.  The general consensus is there are two
types of cholesterol—the good and the bad—the good is thought to be
high-density lipoproteins or HDL, and the bad is low-density
lipoproteins or LDL. But we now know from research that it's much
more complicated than that—there are actually various sizes and
densities of these lipoproteins.  Today on The Doctor’s
Farmacy, I’m excited to talk to one of the leading lipidologists,
Dr. Ronald Krauss, all about lipoproteins, what they do in the
body, what they mean for heart disease risk, and why a typical
lipid panel alone is insufficient. Dr. Krauss is a Senior Scientist
at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, a Professor of
Medicine at UCSF, and an Adjunct Professor of Nutritional Sciences
at UC Berkeley. Dr. Krauss’s research aims to understand how to
best prevent cardiovascular disease through early detection and
management of its major risk factors: most notably, elevated levels
of blood cholesterol and lipoproteins. He has published over 450
research articles and reviews on metabolic, genetic, dietary, and
drug effects on plasma lipoproteins and the risk of coronary artery
disease, with over 100,000 citations of this work. This episode is
brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, LMNT, and Cozy Earth.
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40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com and
use code DRHYMAN. Here are more details from our interview (audio
version / Apple Subscriber version): How Dr. Krauss came to
understand how cholesterol actually impacts the risk of heart
disease (5:00 / 2:44) What is cholesterol? (9:00 / 6:37) 
Statins as heart disease treatment (13:36 / 11:29)  Combatting
myths around saturated fat (14:42 / 12:37)  The assay Dr.
Krauss developed to differentiate between the different sizes of
lipoproteins and what they mean for heart disease risk (29:58 /
25:40) Testing beyond the standard lipid panel (39:51 / 35:31)
Insulin resistance, prediabetes, and heart disease (46:35 /
41:50)  Personal variation in heart disease risk (52:52 /
48:34)  Dietary approaches to preventing heart disease
(1:01:07 / 56:56)  Research mentioned in this episode