lp(a) as a risk factor for early heart disease.

WebMd, a reliable source of health information in my experience, reports a study from the Womens Health Study that lp(a), an LDL associated blood protein that we have tesing for using the VAP test for the past ten years or so is associatd with increased risk for heart disease. Note that the lp(a),pronounced "lp little a", must be very high 66- 130 mg/dl to be dangerous. I don't recall ever seeing one that high in a child althought tehy reprot 1 in 10 women with levels of 65mg/dl or greater. Niaspan is the one drug known to lower lp(a). No diet factors have been identified to either lower or raise lp(a).

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/127/116751


Extremely High Lipoprotein(a) Level Doubles Odds of Heart Disease
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
on Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Sept. 19, 2006 -- It's long been suspected of aiding and abetting bad cholesterol. Now medical detectives looking for a heart disease culprit say very high levels of a blood protein called lipoprotein(a) nearly double heart disease risk.

This dangerous substance helps cholesterol stick to the walls of your arteries. But it's been hard to make a case against it -- mainly because there's been no reliable way to measure the protein.

But technology -- and researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital -- finally has caught up with lipoprotein(a).

The researchers did it by using a state-of-the-art lipoprotein(a) test to analyze frozen blood samples collected 10 years ago from nearly 28,000 middle-aged women in the Women's Health Study. The women were healthy at the start of the study.

As it turns out, most of us have little to worry about from lipoprotein(a). Only very high levels of the protein are linked to heart disease. In fact, the study suggests it is dangerous only at levels more than twice as high as those previously thought harmful.

However, when lipoprotein(a) levels are high, it's bad news. One in 10 women has a lipoprotein(a) level of 65.5 mg/dL or greater. Those women have a 66% higher risk of heart disease.

One in 100 women has a level of 130.7 mg/dL or greater. That doubles a woman's risk of heart disease.

Lipoprotein(a) doesn't do its dirty work alone. It teams up with LDL cholesterolLDL cholesterol -- the bad cholesterol.

The link between lipoprotein(a) and heart disease is strongest among women with above-normal LDL cholesterol levels, find Jacqueline Suk Danik, MD, MPH, and colleagues.

Because lipoprotein(a) showed increased risk only at very high levels, and because there is no proof yet that lowering lipoprotein(a) levels lowers heart risk, the researchers don't advise routine testing.

"Determination of lipoprotein(a) levels should … be reserved for high-risk subsets of the population, such as individuals with premature [heart attacks] who have otherwise normal risk profiles or are at particularly high risk because of circumstances such as [inherited high cholesterolhigh cholesterol]," Danik and colleagues suggest.