New Guidelines Needed on Cholesterol Levels??

Are LDL and HDL the markers we should be looking at and worrying about when assessing risk for cardiac diseases?  This study casts some doubt on the long held idea that cholesterol is at the "heart" of the matter.  In it, they analyzed the hospitalizations of over 135,000 patients admitted with coronary artery disease and found that almost 72% and 55% of these patients had LDL and HDL levels, respectively, that would indicate that they were NOT at high risk for CV trouble.  High risk people have LDL levels above 130 mg/dL and HDL levels below 70 mg/dL.  In addition, 65% of these patients had triglyceride levels below 200 mg/dL.  Not only does this study bring into question the current guidelines put forth by the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, but also the entire cholesterol hypothesis for heart disease.  This idea is not that new as there are many more factors that are now known to be implicated in heart disease besides HDL and LDL (C-reactive protein, apolipoproteins, homocysteine, etc).  It might be a good idea to have your doctor screen for these other factors as well!  And, it's really too bad these researchers didn't also determine the levels of these other factors in their patient population.  We could have learned so much more!!