February is American Heart Month. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women, but the tests women receive were largely developed and validated on men. Standard lipid panels miss cardiovascular risk in women in ways that are becoming impossible to ignore, and the emerging science on female cardiovascular risk is transforming what leading practitioners now order.
This session covers cardiovascular health assessment for women specifically. We’ll walk through what a standard cholesterol panel measures, why it’s an incomplete picture of your actual cardiovascular risk, and what markers are becoming standard among lipidologists and preventive cardiologists. If you’ve been told your cholesterol is fine and left it at that, this session gives you the framework for a much more sophisticated conversation about your heart.
Standard of care markers we’ll cover include total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, and standard blood pressure protocols. Emerging markers include ApoB (the actual particle count that matters more than LDL), Lp(a) (a genetic risk marker that should be tested at least once), high-sensitivity CRP for inflammatory risk, homocysteine, LDL particle number and size (NMR LipoProfile), coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring, and the specific ways perimenopause and menopause shift cardiovascular risk assessment.
You’ll leave with a genuinely modernized understanding of cardiovascular risk, the specific questions to ask your doctor about advanced lipid testing, and clarity on why the tests that determined “your cholesterol is fine” may be missing your actual risk.
