Dr Amir Khan

So when we do a blood test on you for your cholesterol, what we're actually asking for is something called a lipid profile.

And it breaks down your fats into your total cholesterol,

your HDLs and your LDLs and looking at the ratio between the two.

And also other fats as well.

There's another one called triglycerides, which are important too because they give us a picture of how many calories you're taking in, how well your insulin's working and perhaps how much sugar you've got in your body as well and how your body's breaking down sugar.

So your triglycerides are another important fat, but the main ones are the HDLs and the LDLs.

Yes.

Those are the main ones we look for in that.

We could ask for more.

We certainly could.

But those are the main ones that we look for.

Yeah.

And there's good ones and bad ones.

And so when I'm looking at, because I do diabetes, so every time I review my patients, we do a whole battery of blood tests on them.

And the lipid profile is one of them.

And I will be really strict with my patients living with type 2 diabetes in particular, because they've already got one risk factor, diabetes.

So I'm really strict with their cholesterol and I make sure we are getting it down below 4%.

Often the warning signs are too late.

So it could be a heart attack or a stroke.

It could be problems with your vision or kidney function as well.