Heart Health in Kidney Disease Patient Not Affected by LDL Cholesterol

(Ivanhoe Newswire) - Researchers from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, have found that LDL cholesterol, a common marker for heart disease, is not as effective of an indicator of heart disease in people who have kidney disease.
Lead study author Marcello Tonelli, MD, and his colleague studied 836,060 adults with chronic kidney disease over an average of four years. During this time, 7,762 patients were hospitalized for heart problems. Most of these patients had the lowest kidney function in the study. Although those patients with the lowest kidney function were the most likely to suffer from heart issues, LDL cholesterol was a weaker indicator for this group than in the patients who had higher levels of kidney function.
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SOURCE: Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, May 2013