New research, by Dr. Sotirios Tsimikas of the University of California, San Diego, has produced the first convincing evidence that a type of fat in the bloodstream can trigger the earliest conditions that lead to clogged blood vessels, the highest cause of heart attacks.
These encouraging results will need further research to consolidate the findings, but it could mean that someday, people could be tested for this particular fat, just as they are now tested for cholesterol, in order to establish if there is a danger of a heart attack.
In the study it was found, especially in people under age 60, that levels of the fat strongly correlated with the risk of heart disease.
Judith Berliner, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, says the findings give people another reason to limit fat in their diets.
She says no one really knows what causes the formation of blockages, which can squeeze blood vessels shut and deprive the heart of nourishment, and most of the studies in the past have concentrated on cholesterol, but many doctors have felt that other factors also must also be involved, because cholesterol levels are often normal in many heart attack victims.
Berliner says the research also raises the possibility of new approaches to treating and preventing heart disease.
Many scientists have been suspicious that one such factor might be oxidized phospholipids, a type of fat that's a major component of LDL or "bad cholesterol", and research in animals has found that this fat, which is floating in the bloodstream, contributes to blockage formation.
The new research, is the first to show the same is true in people.