Lipid profile

One tube of blood produces four or five numbers, and the useful thing is the pattern rather than any single line. cholesterolCholesterolCholesterol is a waxy fat the body needs to build cell walls, hormones and vitamin D. Problems come not from its presence but from the balance between the particles that deposit it in artery walls and those that carry it away.Read the full definition itself is neither good nor bad; what the panel separates out is the particle carrying it toward the artery wall from the one carrying it away, together with a second family of fat that behaves differently again.

How the test is done

Fasting used to be routine and is now required far less often. Total cholesterol, HDL and non-HDL cholesterol are barely affected by a recent meal, so a non-fasting sample is acceptable for screening and for monitoring treatment. Fasting for nine to twelve hours is still asked for when triglyceridesTriglyceridesTriglycerides are the main form in which fat is carried in the blood and stored in the body. They are measured as part of a lipid profile, and a high level adds to cardiovascular risk.Read the full definition are the specific question, when a previous non-fasting triglyceride was high, or when a laboratory calculates ldl cholesterolLDL cholesterolLDL cholesterol is the particle that carries cholesterol from the liver out to the tissues and deposits it in artery walls along the way. It is the number that treatment aims at, and lowering it reliably lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke.Read the full definition rather than measuring it. Water is allowed throughout; usual medicines are taken unless you have been told otherwise.

Several ordinary things distort the result, and it is worth avoiding them rather than repeating the test. A heavy or very fatty meal the night before, alcohol in the previous few days, an acute illness or infection, and the weeks following surgery or a heart attack all shift the numbers. Pregnancy raises lipids substantially and normally, so a panel taken then is not comparable with one taken outside it.

Reading it, three questions matter more than the individual values. Is the LDL where it should be for this person's overall risk, which is not a fixed number for everyone. Is the non-HDL figure — total cholesterol minus HDL — also at target, since it captures every harmful particle at once and is not distorted by high triglycerides. And what is the whole risk picture: age, blood pressureBlood pressureBlood pressure is the force of blood against the artery walls, written as two numbers in millimetres of mercury: the higher one is the pressure as the heart squeezes, the lower one the pressure as it refills. It varies through the day, so a diagnosis is never made on one reading.Read the full definition, diabetesDiabetesDiabetes is a condition in which blood glucose stays too high, either because the body makes too little insulin or because it has stopped responding to it. Pakistan has one of the highest rates in the world, and a large share of people with it do not yet know.Read the full definition, smoking, family history and South Asian ethnicity, which raises risk at any given cholesterol level. A perfect panel in a smoker with high blood pressure is not reassurance, and a modestly raised one in a low-risk 30-year-old rarely needs a tablet.