Home Testing Cholesterol

[NewRon]

Are there any fast reliable systems for home testing of HDL, TG and LDL and possibly other related parameters?

[aphorist]

There are a couple vendors with devices/strips like CardioChek, Prima. I have both and have played with them a bit. The strips are quite expensive but obviously cheaper than submitting bloodwork to LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics.

[Harrison]

Hi aphorist,
Have you benchmarked the home tests against a blood draw with a standard lipid panel, or even better, an NMR?

[Ski]

I have the Cholestech LDX machine that all health screening companies use. Retail they run over $1000 but I picked it up brand new on eBay for $100. I have done comparisons against an NMR on more than 1 occasion and it is not as accurate but pretty darn close. You can pick up the cassettes for around $7 a piece. Pretty convenient.
I looked at those other cheaper options and didn't like the inconsistency of the reviews. If I couldn't trust the readings, then what good was it.

[aphorist]

There is a paper discussing their accuracy. I recall them being pretty accurate but not 'perfect'. My experience is that the cardiochek is probably the best way to go. It won't give you particle count data or lipoprotein size like nmr will, so idk why you would really conpare it to that test.

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[Harrison]

The point of comparing against an NMR is just because I assume it is a more accurate method for even the basic parameters. For my annual physical, my GP does both a standard lipid and an NMR. I also happen to do a finger stick at a health screening (probably a Cholestech-like device) at the same time.

Code: Select all

Equipment  Cholestech    Std Lipid Panel    NMR
Total        239             222            244
LDL          154             147            162
HDL           66              63             66
Trig          93              62             78

The finger-prick reading device and the NMR are actually more in agreement than the standard lipid panel, which is a little crazy. My LDL has me in the market for one of these devices.

Ski, I see a bunch of Cholestechs on ebay for $100. Do you need a printer, or can you just read the numbers off the screen?

[NewRon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F72wOu-Y-WE

Seems it's optional.

[aphorist]

You don't need the printer

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[Ski]

Ski, I see a bunch of Cholestechs on ebay for $100. Do you need a printer, or can you just read the numbers off the screen?

No, you simply read off the screen. Be sure to buy one of the later models. You can tell the older versions by the emblem on the machine. The older versions have a big LDX on them. You will also need to get the capillary tubes, plungers and lancets. You need the bigger lancets as the small ones used for glucose testing are not going to suffice due to needing more blood for the draw.
I think I ordered mine from here http://www.hmscweborder.com/ldxaccesories.aspx

If you get to that point, I can give you some pointers on blood drawing as it requires a bit of a finesse when doing it by yourself

[aphorist]

I would strongly encourage anyone buying these machines to carefully weight the tradeoff between the Cholestech and the Cardiochek. The Cholestech requires all 'cassettes' to be refrigerated or the substrate material that reacts with the blood goes bad. The pipettes and blood required are far greater in the Cholestech LDX. The Cardiochek is far simpler to use and the trade-off in accuracy is not that much AFAIK.

I found the Cholestech LDX to be a total pain in the arse compared to the Cardiochek.