Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Dr

12 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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Aaron Hartman, MD, explains that atherosclerosis is driven by cholesterol carried in lipoproteins through the bloodstream. Tissues take up lipids either by absorbing whole lipoproteins or through specific receptors. The brain maintains its own separate lipid system.

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Atherosclerosis is ultimately the end of the day. It is a lipid mediated disease, and it's one lipid called cholesterol. But lipoproteins is what traffics lipids in our bloodstream. So if lipids are causing a pathology in anything outside of the brain, because what's floating in lipids in your bloodstream has zero to do with the brain. The brain's got its own lipid and lipoprotein system, but the lipids get trafficked in the bloodstream inside of lipoproteins. And unless a lipoprotein either invades a particle and dumps its lipids or is delipidated by a certain lipid receptor, what the lipoproteins are carrying is never going to get into any tissue.