National Cholesterol Month

 

It’s National Cholesterol Month, time to raise awareness on the dangers high cholesterol can have on your body and the strain it can have on your precious heart, the centre piece and vital organ that keeps you alive and pumps blood to every corner of your body.

 

Cardiovascular disease is the leading killer, claiming 17.9 million lives globally each year. 80% of these are due to strokes and heart attacks. Its not too late to get checked out and to alter your lifestyle habits.

 

Randox Laboratories provides a comprehensive range of reagents for Cardiovascular disease with sdLDL providing detailed testing of cholesterol levels and overall Cardiovascular Health, see more in the blog below.

 

Cholesterol can be a friend, but it can also be a foe. Maybe you associate bad cholesterol with the result of being overweight, this is not always the case, without a balanced diet, essential exercise, you are at risk of being in the cholesterol danger zone.

Small dense Low-Density Lipoprotein (sdLDL) carries cholesterol to and from cells in the body, it is one of two proteins. However, it is more atherogenic than LDL cholesterol meaning it has a higher tendency to leave fatty deposits in the blood and has a greater ability to block arteries.

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is key for progression and development of cardiovascular disease and plague build up (atherosclerosis). LDL has a couple of subclasses sdLDL being one, making it a more reliable marker for the discovery and testing of cardiovascular issues.

 

sdLDL has a significantly greater atherogenic potential than LDL sub-group. This makes the portion of sdLDL a better marker to predict cardiovascular disease and issues than LDL. It provides a greater understanding of lipoprotein risk within patients; it is more comprehensive in detecting cardiovascular risk in comparison to the original LDL-C test. It is a valuable screening tool in allowing to detect for diseases and abnormalities in the cardiovascular system. As sdLDL-C is particularly atherogenic, a person with elevated sdLDL-C levels has a 3-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction.

Randox provides the “only direct automated sdLDL-C kit on the market, The Randox sdLDL-C ‘Ex-Seiken’ test is a direct method for the quantitative determination of sdLDL-C using automated chemistry analysers, capable of accommodating two-reagent assays. The assay consists of two steps and is based on the use of well-characterised surfactants and enzymes that selectively react with certain groups of lipoproteins.”

Benefits include,

• Direct, automated test for convenience and efficiency
• Rapid analysis results can be produced in as little as ten minutes, facilitating faster patient diagnosis and treatment plan implementation.
• Good correlation to the gold standard ultracentrifugation method
• Liquid ready-to-use reagents for convenience and ease of use
• Applications available detailing instrument specific settings for a wide range of analysers
• Clearance method sdLDL-C controls and calibrator available.

References

Fernandez-Alvarez R, Gonzalez-Rodriguez AP, Gonzalez E, Rubio-Castro A, Dominguez-Iglesias F, et al. Serum Ferritin as Prognostic Marker in Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma Treated With ABVD-based Therapy. Leukemia & Lymphoma . 2015;56(11):3096-3102. 

Randox (2023) Ferritin: Reagents, Randox Laboratories. Available at: https://www.randox.com/ferritin/ (Accessed: 20 September 2023). 

Rosário C, Zandman-Goddard G, Meyron-Holtz EG, D’Cruz DP, Shoenfeld Y. The hyperferritinemic syndrome: macrophage activation syndrome, Still’s disease, septic shock and catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome. BMC Medicine . 2013;11(185). 

Sharma J, Sharma R. A prognostic marker in patients with sepsis in pediatric age group: A prospective cohort study. International Journal of Medical and Health Research . 2018;4(3):86-89. 

The Royal College of Pathologists. Guidance on the Use and Interpretation of Clinical Biochemistry Tests in Patients with COVID-19 Infection.; 2020. Accessed September 18, 2023. https://www.rcpath.org/uploads/assets/3f1048e5-22ea-4bda-953af20671771524/G217-RCPath-guidance-on-use-and-interpretation-of-clinical-biochemistry-tests-in-patients-with-COVID-19-infection.pdf 

World Health Organisation. WHO Guideline on Use of Ferritin Concentrations to Assess Iron Status in Individuals and Populations.; 2020. Accessed September 18, 2023. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240000124