Raising 'good cholesterol' may not always cut heart attack risk
Washington, May 17 (ANI): A new study has cast doubts on a
popular assumption that raising a person's HDL - the so-called
'good cholesterol' - will necessarily lower the risk of a heart
attack. The new research underscores the value of using genetic
approaches to test biological hypotheses about human disease
prior to developing specific drugs. A team led by researchers
from the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital
(MGH) explored naturally occurring genetic variations in humans
to test the connection between HDL levels and heart attack. By
studying the genes of roughly 170,000 individuals, the team
discovered that, when examined together, the 15 HDL-raising
variants they tested do not reduce the risk of heart attack.
"It's been assumed that if a patient, or group of patients, did
something to cause their HDL levels to go up, then you can
safely assume that their risk of heart attack will go down,"
said senior author Sekar Kathiresan