Bad News About Good Cholesterol

Remember good cholesterol? You know, HDL cholesterol, the kind that was associated with reduced risk of stroke? Forget it. Now comes a study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute suggesting that people with genes that boost HDL levels  do not, in fact, have a lower risk of heart attacks. Strange. The Boston Globe reports that the scientists in looked at a gene variation that raises HDL levels, and should consequently give people a 13 percent decreased risk of heart attack. But when the researchers compared the genetically blessed with people who didn’t have the gene, there was zero difference in heart attack risk. Wait there’s more: another study, in which researchers examined a panel of 14 genetic variations that raised HDL levels, also found that inheriting those variations did nothing to reduce the risk of heart attack. Read an almost inscrutable summary of the study here.