Articles
Heart health 9 min
Pooling 73 randomized trials and 5,060 participants, a Cochrane review found walking reduced systolic blood pressure by 4.11 mmHg, on moderate-certainty evidence. Diastolic fell less, on weaker evidence, and the effect was similar whether participants started with normal or high blood pressure.
Heart health 7 min
The 2025 AHA and ACC guideline kept the four categories introduced in 2017 and changed what happens inside them. Stage 1 hypertension now triggers medication for anyone with cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, or a PREVENT 10-year risk of 7.5 percent or more, and the overarching treatment goal is below 130 over 80 for all adults.
Heart health 6 min
Lp(a) is set by your genes, barely moves in a lifetime, and the European Atherosclerosis Society says to measure it at least once in adulthood. There is still no approved drug that lowers it, though the first large outcome trial reached its primary completion date in July 2026.
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Heart health 5 min
Low HDL is a genuine risk marker, and every drug trial that raised HDL on purpose failed to help. One raised it by 72 percent and increased deaths. Here are the real categories, and why HDL is read rather than treated.
Heart health 8 min
No guideline publishes cholesterol targets by decade of age. What sets your target is your calculated 10-year cardiovascular risk. Here are the real LDL, HDL, total cholesterol and triglyceride categories from NCEP ATP III, the 2018 AHA/ACC guideline, the 2019 ESC/EAS guideline and MedlinePlus, with the one age boundary that sets a treatment threshold (40 to 75), and the one place these guidelines split by sex (HDL).
Heart health 3 min
ApoB counts every atherogenic particle (one ApoB per particle), while LDL-C weighs the cholesterol inside them. The two diverge in people with high triglycerides, diabetes or obesity, where LDL-C can look fine while the particle count runs high. The 2018 AHA/ACC guideline treats ApoB 130 mg/dL or higher as a risk-enhancing factor, and the NLA's 2024 consensus sets treatment thresholds of 90, 70 and 60 mg/dL by risk level.
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