I don't have access to the Stephen Nicholls article "Will Big Data Shine Light at the End of the Tunnel for HDL?" However, it is just a short editoral based on the accompanying article "High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol and Cause-Specific Mortality in Individuals Without Previous Cardiovascular Conditions: The CANHEART Study," which I also don't have access too. But you can read the abstract at least.

At first glance it appears that low HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) was correlated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but they also found that those on the higher end of the HDL-C spectrum had increased risk of non-cardiovascular mortality. According to the concluding statement....."Complex associations exist between HDL-C levels and sociodemographic, lifestyle, comorbidity factors, and mortality. HDL-C level is unlikely to represent a CV-specific risk factor given similarities in its associations with non-CV outcomes."

I'm not really sure what to make of this...but their translational outlook statement is a good one "Future studies should examine specific aspects of HDL-C, such as HDL particle size, subclasses, and function to identify correlates of cardiovascular risk that may be amenable to therapeutic intervention."

So HDL-C may not be as clear of a CV-specific risk factor. Instead, they are advising that future HDL-related interventions look at these other HDL metrics such as particle size, subclasses and function. Hey, guess what.....RVX is doing that!

BearDownAZ