The cholesterol panel is only the beginning
LDL cholesterol, ApoB, and Lp(a) answer related but different questions. The distinction becomes useful when the measurements disagree.
Read the briefingInside the exam room, past the headline
Medicine rarely fits inside the number circled on a lab report.
A weekly note on preventive medicine, metabolism, and the distance between what the evidence shows and what a patient is left to do with it.
Read the next briefingWritten by Rubin Thomas, MD
Board certified internal medicine physician
Board certified internal medicine physician
One result becomes a rule. One association becomes a cause. One person’s response becomes everybody’s answer.
The exam room is less cooperative.
Clinical briefings
Questions that deserve more than a headline
Useful evidence, its limits, and the decision hiding underneath the test.
What a coronary artery calcium score can and cannot tell you
Continuous glucose monitors in people without diabetes
Deprescribing as an active form of medicine
About
Rubin Thomas, MD
Board certified internist. Former academic hospitalist and assistant professor. Now practicing outpatient medicine, where prevention has to survive short appointments, fragmented records, and the rest of a person’s life.
HealthyLifeMD follows the questions that remain after the chart closes: metabolic risk, advanced cardiovascular markers, strength, medication burden, and where clinical certainty gets ahead of the science.