General Discussion

A friend of mine had a heart attack that was likely preventable had they been monitoring apo(B), rather than the standard cholesterol. He was dead for a few minutes - fortunately, he happened to be with a cardiac surgeon at the time who knew the best steps to take to keep him alive.

There is a lot of hype about diet and serum cholesterol (often correlated, but not always, and causation v. correlation is not always clear), and about serum cholesterol and heart attacks (again - often correlated, but not always, and causation v. correlation is not always clear).

Statins are miracle drugs for lowering serum cholesterol - but if that isn't the cause of of the condition, it won't help (as in your case) - and the cost of the magic is that the same mechanism that blocks cholesterol production (forcing your body to pull cholesterol from the blood) also blocks production of other things your body needs. (CoQ10, for one.)

I've got high serum cholesterol - but zero cardiac calcification. There's a lot we don't know yet.