After reading Steve Kirsch, aka the Paleo Drummer, describe his experience decreasing his LDL by drinking alcohol after discovering his Apo E genotype, I’ve been trying to learn more about Apolipoprotein E.

Probably the best thing that I’ve come across is the pdf summary sheet provided by Atherotech, a company that runs the test.  You can find the pdf sheet itself here.

My interest lies mainly in the relationship between Apolipoprotein E and LDL status (given my elevation of all things LDL) as well as coronary vascular disease (CVD)

Apo E2

2/2: Increased risk of type III hyperlipidemia.  While this is rare, it carries an increased risk of (CVD).
2/3: Reduced coronary vascular risk of 20%
2/4: Super rare… and not well studied.

Apo E2 apparently has lower LDL-C compared to Apo E3, but much higher triglycerides, and apparently respond very well to statins and exercise.

Apo E3

3/3: Over 60% of the population and is considered the ‘neutral/normal’ genotype.

Apo E4

3/4 and 4/4: Increased CVD risk as well as increased risk of Alzheimers Disease.

Apo E4 has higher LDL-C and triglycerides compared to Apo E3.

Final Thoughts

I’ll be the first to say that this is a highly complex subject and this is barely touching the surface.  My objective with this post was just to help myself understand the bare minimum of what exactly each genotype means.

IF I were to get tested for my Apolipoprotein E status and it came back as 3/3 or 2/3, I wanted to be able to understand what the heck that means for me… I mean if I’m an Apo E 3 then I probably wouldn’t need to delve further into this subject… however if I’m an Apo E2, then it’s back to pubmed to learn more about all the little nuances (like LDL receptor binding affinities and all that).