11 Tests for Heart Disease You Never Knew You Needed

Advanced cholesterol panel

Picture a highway with 100 passengers. If they are driving 10 to a minivan, there are only 10 large vehicles on the road, and it is not too congested. If all 100 are riding in individual small cars, there’s a lot more traffic. That is how large and small LDL cholesterol appears in arteries. Lots of LDL particles clog up the artery highway. Those LDL riders in cars can also be hard and dense, like a golf ball, or large and soft, like a sponge. The small, dense LDL particles do a lot more damage to arteries. (Here are some foods that lower cholesterol naturally.)

This is why two people with an LDL level of 100 mg/dl can have different heart disease risks, because it’s possible that they have widely different particle numbers and sizes. If someone has fewer than 1,000 LDL particles in a blood sample and they are large in size, their risk for hardening of arteries is low. A second person might have a particle number of 2,000 be loaded with small “golf balls” that are knocking into and entering arteries to cause plaques. (Don’t miss these silent signs of clogged arteries.)

An advanced cholesterol panel blood test can tell you more about your LDL particle number and size.

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