Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Dyslipidemia
Summary
Dyslipidemia is an abnormal amount of lipids (e.g. triglycerides, cholesterol and/or fat phospholipids) in the blood. Dyslipidemia is a risk factor for the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). ASCVD includes coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral artery disease. Although dyslipidemia is a risk factor for ASCVD, abnormal levels don't mean that lipid lowering agents need to be started. Other factors, such as comorbid conditions and lifestyle in addition to dyslipidemia, is considered in a cardiovascular risk assessment. In developed countries, most dyslipidemias are hyperlipidemias; that is, an elevation of lipids in the blood. This is often due to diet and lifestyle. Prolonged elevation of insulin resistance can also lead to dyslipidemia. Likewise, increased levels of O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) may cause dyslipidemia.
Physicians and basic researchers classify dyslipidemias in two distinct ways. One way is its presentation in the body (including the specific type of lipid that is increased). The other way is due to the underlying cause for the condition (genetic, or secondary to another condition). This classification can be problematic, because most conditions involve the intersection of genetics and lifestyle issues. However, there are a few well-defined genetic conditions that are usually easy to identify.
The three main blood levels collected to assess for dyslipidemia is triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). High triglyceride levels (>1.7 mmol/L fasting) can indicate dyslipidemia. Triglycerides are transported through the blood by using very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) as a carrier. One thing to note when measuring triglyceride levels is that fasting for 8–12 hours is required to get an accurate result as non-fasting TG results may be falsely elevated. If TG results are greater than 10 mmol/L, then this needs to be addressed since severe hypertriglceridemia is a risk factor for acute pancreatitis.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.