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March 19, 2001
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What This CEO Didn't Know About His Cholesterol Almost Killed Him
Half of all heart attacks happen to those whose blood tests are normal.
By Deborah Franklin
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Ira Lipman wanted to know why he had needed an emergency coronary bypass after years of conventional management of his high-risk lipid profile. Seeking an answer with the aggressiveness that had made him founder and CEO of a large corporate-security firm, Lipman's search eventually led him to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and Berkeley HeartLab.
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Here he learned that there are tests "that look beyond the usual definitions of good and bad cholesterol, that separate the bad from the really bad and the mildly good from the angelic. [These] subtler measures may be much more predictive of who's going to get a heart attack and who's not. They're also a guide to more tailored treatment."
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From the advanced tests, Lipman also learned that he had the small LDL trait which had not shown up in the conventional lipid tests. This profile fits one in three American men Lipman's age giving them a 300% higher risk of heart disease.
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"If I'd known ten years ago there were better tests than just measuring cholesterol, I'd have done them and gotten treatment earlier," Lipman says in the article. "I'd never have needed the bypass. We're talking about a simple blood test-why don't doctors do it routinely?"
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"Other facts [Lipman] learned made him even madder. Medicare and other insurers will pay for the added tests in some cases. Yet some of the most influential researchers in cardiology still consider them experimental and too expensive. They have yet to recommend the tests, so most doctors and patients don't know they exist."
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