7 - Apolipoprotein-4 (APOE-4)

Summary

At some point while I was a medical student in the 1970s, I had my cholesterol checked. I think it was part of a pedagogical exercise, and as I recall, only the total cholesterol was measured. Surprisingly, the cholesterol level was near the upper limit of normal. Too many burgers and fries said Lois. I laughed it off. There wasn’t much heart disease in the family. One of my grandfathers died of a heart attack, a myocardial infarction, but he was in his mid-70s. I was in my 20s and invincible. As I grew older, my cholesterol levels, especially the LDL cholesterol, crept higher, and the upper limits of normal were revised down so that by the time I was in my 40s, my cholesterol was unambiguously elevated. By the time I was in my 50s, I was taking medications to keep my cholesterol levels and blood pressure under control. As the years went by, the doses of these medications continued to climb. My hyperlipidemia and hypertension have always been a bit of a puzzle to me, but they have both been manageable with medications and diet.