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Pastimes : Heart Attacks, Cancer and strokes. Preventative approaches -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (1769)	10/25/2008 4:11:58 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 39297

Thanks, Nick. I try to keep this thread as non-political as possible. Had an interesting Q&A with Dr Davis today. Looks like Lipoprotein testing is not as widespread as I had thought. Lindybill:....... With the total rejection of Lipoprotein analysis that I find at Kaiser so far, I wonder how a Doctor who does not do this test responds when you ask him, "How do you check for Lp (a) or small LDL if you don't do this test?" Is it that they don't think it matters? I have let it go here on the basis that an argument gets me nowhere. How can they just ignore this? They must be aware that this info is available to them if they test for it. Perhaps I misunderstand how widespead the use of these tests are. Are they SOP in major Heart Centers, such as Mayo, Cleveland, UCLA, etc? Do we have any idea how many are ordered each year? Also, I believe that widespread use of Heart Scans is about 20 years old. Is that right? Is Lp analysis about that old also? lindybill@bewildered.com Dr. Davis: ... The use of lipoproteins is not widespread, but not uncommon either. You'd have to contact the lipoprotein testing companies for more precise numbers. However, in Milwaukee, I'd crudely estimate that about 10 physicians use it, though only about 3-4 actually understand it. Large centers don't necessarily make it available. It depends more on whether somebody has taken the time and effort to obtain the education, do the research and background work, etc. The lipoprotein testing companies will tell you who is doing it in your area; you will need to contact the company, then ask for their local representative, who can then tell you who the docs in your area area. See Web Resources. Heart scans have been fairly widely available since the mid-1990s. Sadly, the slow acceptance of heart scans have less to do with their availability or usefulness, and more with the fact that nobody makes a lot of money performing them or ordering them. Imagine how popular they would be if your doctor could charge $5000 per test. All of a sudden, they'd be the most popular test on the block.