A 2025 study of 5,000 people found that high Lp(a), a genetic heart disease risk factor, only increased cardiovascular risk in those with high waist-to-hip ratios. Lean, metabolically healthy people with high Lp(a) appeared protected from its harms.
Lp is a biomarker and lipoprotein particle. Maybe you've heard of it. It's a genetically determined risk factor for heart disease and the new kid on the cardiology block. Some say if you have high Lp, like me, you're doomed. But new 2025 data provide a remarkable twist on the heart health narrative. In a study of nearly 5,000 people followed for a median timeframe of 17.4 years, researchers found that only those people with elevated waist-to-hip ratios, a proxy for abdominal fat and visceral fat, exhibited Lp associated increases in cardiovascular events. That also means, in simple terms, lean, metabolically healthy people might be relatively protected against the assumed dangers associated with genetically determined high Lp—people like me and maybe you too. Now, if this nibble of data did like Lp can do to arteries and stuck in your brain, chase the link in the caption for a science-based protocol to turn insights drawn from the data into actions to protect your heart. Stay curious. Check out the notes.
