Cholesterol Therapies

This week we talk about LDL, HDL, and cardiovascular issues.
We also discuss one-time therapies, statins, and pharmaceutical economics.
Recommended Book: Blood by Dr. Jen Gunter
Transcript
Cholesterol is the most common type of what’s called a sterol, which is a type of steroid, but also structurally technically an alcohol. But functionally, and classified by scientists, cholesterol is a lipid, which in this case is similar to a fat in all but how the body uses it. Cholesterol is the type of sterol most commonly found in animals—other types are found in plants and fungi—and its function, and this is where it varies from fats, which are used to store energy, is to basically help hold the cell membrane together, and it also serves as an intracellular messenger.
Cholesterol is especially prevalent in the brain and spinal cord of animals, but it’s found throughout their bodily tissues, as well, and again, it’s vital for holding everything together and helping things communicate, in addition to being a precursor for vitamin D, steroid hormones, and bile.
You want to have cholesterol, then, as without it you would be dead.
Too much cholesterol in the blood, however, can also make you dead, especially when it’s bound to what’s called low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, as that contributes to cardiovascular disease like heart attacks and aneurysms, which can massively impact one’s overall wellness and quality of life, and at extremes lead to the whole system shutting down as a consequence of heart attack, stroke, and the like.
A lot of things can contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease, including habits like smoking, genetic predisposition, and the enthusiastic consumption of alcohol and unhealthy foods. But high blood cholesterol, of the LDL variety, is one of the top contributors, as these low-density clusters of lipoprotein can clog the pathways that blood takes throughout our bodies. Other, denser types of lipoproteins, HDLs, can clear it, like a heavier, denser substance pushing through clogs of less-dense materials that are gumming up a pipe, but LDL is at times accumulated as a result of consuming delicious but unhealthy foods, which are hard to avoid, and for some people the only consistently available and affordable foods; and for other people LDL accumulates as a result of their genetic predispositions—two things that are devilishly difficult to change.
What I’d like to talk about today is a new type of therapy that may be very good news for people who struggle with the accumulation of LDL, and why this is being seen as very good news more broadly, at the scale of entire nations, as well.
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Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly is testing a new, experimental drug called VERVE-102 which is a one-time infusion that is currently administered over the course of about four hours, and once completed, it turns off a gene called PCSK9, which is responsible for making a protein that regulates cholesterol levels in humans.
As I said, this drug…