Most people hospitalized for heart attacks have LDL levels considered 'safe' by doctors.
Scientific Claim
A substantial proportion of patients hospitalized with acute coronary artery disease have LDL cholesterol levels below 100 mg/dL, challenging the assumption that elevated LDL is a necessary precursor to clinical events.
Original Statement
“In this study, researchers analyze blood work from more than 136,000 patients. All taken within 24 hours of hospital admission for coronary artery disease... roughly 50% of all of the patients in this study had LDL levels below 100 mg per deciliter, right inside the so-called safe zone.”
Context Details
Domain
cardiology
Population
human
Subject
patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease
Action
have
Target
LDL cholesterol levels below 100 mg/dL
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (2)
Lipid levels in patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease: an analysis of 136,905 hospitalizations in Get With The Guidelines.
Even though many people think high cholesterol causes heart attacks, this study found that almost half of heart attack patients had cholesterol levels that were actually considered normal or low — meaning heart problems can happen even when cholesterol isn’t high.
This study looked at heart attack patients and found that many of them had low LDL cholesterol (below 100 mg/dL) when they were hospitalized, which means you can still have a heart attack even if your 'bad cholesterol' isn't high — challenging the idea that high LDL is always needed for a heart attack.
Technical explanation
This paper directly examines LDL-C levels at baseline in patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (a form of acute coronary syndrome) and finds that a substantial proportion had LDL-C ≥100 mg/dL, implying that many others had levels below 100 mg/dL — directly supporting the assertion that low LDL-C does not preclude acute coronary events. The study explicitly stratifies outcomes by baseline LDL-C, confirming that clinical events occur even in patients with LDL-C near or below the 100 mg/dL threshold.