Last weekend in Chicago, researchers from the American Heart Association (AHA) presented preliminary findings linking higher blood levels of heavy metals to increased levels of lower density lipoprotein (LDL – bad cholesterol) and total cholesterol. Highlights from the AHA Scientific Sessions revealed that participants with higher exposure to lead, mercury, and cadmium had greater odds of elevated total cholesterol.
“Our study demonstrates increasing serum levels of heavy metals are significantly associated with increasing [total cholesterol] and LDL-C,” the researchers wrote in an abstract. “This, in turn, may be associated with cardiovascular consequences in populations exposed to heavy metals such as areas with natural disaster water crises, raising the consideration of screening for heavy metals as a risk for hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular disease,” Olajide Buhari, MD, internal medicine resident at Jacobi Medical Center in New York, told Cardiology Today.
Read more about the study here.