A MATTER OF THE HEART

A little-known health test could save your life... for a price

- IAN TAYLOR

Unless you're a lipids researcher or a fan of health podcasts, you'll be forgiven for not knowing what Apolipoprotein B-100 is. The protein (ApoB to its friends) is created in the liver. It helps shift dietary fat and cholesterol around the body, and bind them to cells where they can be used, stored or removed.

But it's also something of a celebrity: the focus of online chat, at-home health tests and biomedical research. All because measuring ApoB is a highly accurate way of predicting a person's risk of cardiovascular disease - more so than traditional cholesterol tests.

A 2021 paper in The Lancet Health Longevity said ApoB was emerging as the "crucial lipoprotein trait" in working out how cholesterol contributes to your risk of a broken heart. Researchers concluded that "higher ApoB shortens lifespan, increases risks of heart disease, stroke ... and diabetes."

Right now, measuring LDL cholesterol is one of the standard ways to test somebody's cardiovascular risk. LDL is 'the bad one', but it's not the only bad one. LDL cholesterol tests, while accurate, don't always give us the full picture. A person could return a low LDL test, but the picture inside their arteries could still be concerning.