With the Snip of a Gene, Scientists Hope To Erase High Cholesterol For Life (cnn.com) 33
CNN reports that "A one-time snip of a key gene lowered heart-clogging cholesterol by about 50% over an entire year with no adverse effects, scientists have reported."
The overwhelmingly positive results were found in four people who had taken the highest dose of the experimental treatment during a pilot study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in November 2025. That study was extremely small — only 15 patients with dangerously high cholesterol that did not respond to medication. The research was designed to test the safety of five different doses of a gene-altering infusion delivered by CRISPR-Cas9, a biological scissor which cuts a targeted genetic location to modify or turn a gene on or off. "If you'd asked me 15 years ago if we could have done something like this, I would have thought you were crazy," senior study author Dr. Steven Nissen, chief academic officer of the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, told CNN previously.
An update on the study, published Friday in NEJM, appears to answer a key question: Does the intervention last? "Is something like this truly a one and done? That was always the question," said lead study author Dr. Luke Laffin, a preventive cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic's Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute. "This new data is essentially saying that the decreases in LDL cholesterol and triglycerides we saw at 60 days after treatment have lasted over a year," Laffin said. "In people who took the highest dose, the reduction seems durable and safe...."
If larger clinical trials show similar results, the procedure could be a game changer for young people with severe disease, preventive cardiologist Dr. Ann Marie Navar, an associate professor of cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told CNN previously. "If you're 20 and you have really high cholesterol, it may make a lot more sense to have a one-time treatment that doesn't require you to have to take a pill every single day or shot every two weeks for the next 60 years," said Navar, who was not involved in the study. "The potential for this is just enormous."
Being born with this mutation naturally "drastically lowers or even eliminates a person's risk for heart disease," the article points out. And the study's senior author adds "now that CRISPR is here, we have the ability to change other people's genes so they too can have this protection."
An update on the study, published Friday in NEJM, appears to answer a key question: Does the intervention last? "Is something like this truly a one and done? That was always the question," said lead study author Dr. Luke Laffin, a preventive cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic's Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute. "This new data is essentially saying that the decreases in LDL cholesterol and triglycerides we saw at 60 days after treatment have lasted over a year," Laffin said. "In people who took the highest dose, the reduction seems durable and safe...."
If larger clinical trials show similar results, the procedure could be a game changer for young people with severe disease, preventive cardiologist Dr. Ann Marie Navar, an associate professor of cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told CNN previously. "If you're 20 and you have really high cholesterol, it may make a lot more sense to have a one-time treatment that doesn't require you to have to take a pill every single day or shot every two weeks for the next 60 years," said Navar, who was not involved in the study. "The potential for this is just enormous."
Being born with this mutation naturally "drastically lowers or even eliminates a person's risk for heart disease," the article points out. And the study's senior author adds "now that CRISPR is here, we have the ability to change other people's genes so they too can have this protection."
Where do I sign? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a heart attack survivor I'd be happy to have this shot. Between that and a strict ketogenic diet I could reverse my atherosclerosis and vastly reduce my chances of both heart attack and stroke.
In case you're wondering - yes, it really is possible to get rid of arterial plaques. The calcium part of the plaques will always remain, but that's not the dangerous part of the plaques. The killer is the sacs of pus which are part of the plaques, they're what become dislodged and cause heart attack and/or stroke. Diet and lifestyle changes can reduce those pus sacs drastically, though it was long believed that once they were present they were permanent.
I also think that the likelihood of dementia goes down when one manages to reduce atherosclerosis, but I'm not certain of that.
This is not the treatment you are looking for (Score:3)
This is the treatment you are looking for (Score:2)
While they're currently only applying this to people with extreme cholesterol problems, there's no reason the same treatment wouldn't work for anyone on statins. They use different dosages to impact a different percentage of the liver cells to adjust cholesterol levels, essentially introducing a mutation found in a small percentage of the population where a particular gene is inactive. For people with more manageable cholesterol levels, they would presumably just need a lower dosage to get levels below th
What will they think of next? (Score:3)
Does no one remember the movie "28 Days Later"? Imagine what will happen when they figure out which gene to snip for rage?
In what other behaviors could we humans excel by simply snipping the right genes? I can think of a couple...
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Snip the rage gene and Slashdot might cease to exi
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Re: What will they think of next? (Score:2)
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Easy way to lower your cholesterol (Score:1)
Re:Easy way to lower your cholesterol (Score:4, Informative)
Don't take medical advice based on what you read on social media.
Most cholesterol in the body is generated in the liver a.k.a. de novo lipogenesis. This is primarily in response to insulin levels and glucose and fructose levels. Diabetes, obesity and smoking are the stronger behavioral risk factors for hyperlipidemia.
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And pray tell: if you consume a meal with a lot of cholesterol, how is it transported out of the digestive system?
Through your blood.
So you've got heaps of added cholesterol traveling along your bloodstream, potentially sticking to the existing cholesterol/plaque build-up.
There are videos of people getting a blood test after eating fatty meals, and you can literally see the fat in the blood vial.
Funny how you can not only halt, but reverse plaque build-up through a low-fat plant-based diet. Because if you a
Extremes likely have negatives including veganism (Score:5, Insightful)
Cardio-vascular disease rates among vegans is quite rare ...
The same is true for traditional hunting communities that have very meat heavy diets.
You are performing a classic confusion of correlation and causality. Anything taken to an extreme, to a highly artificial level, is going to have problems. That includes veganism, which will just have problems other than heart disease. Humans are biologically omnivores, your personal 'morality' will not change that. The healthy human diet is largely about quality, diversity, and proportionality. Sure a vegan diet is likely quite a but better than McDonald's diet, However quality fruits, vegetables, grains, and meat in good variety and proportions is probably a better diet than the vegan diet. That latter is a better fit for how we evolved.
Re:Extremes likely have negatives including vegani (Score:4, Insightful)
For humans, diversity is the key and not overdoing sugar, salt and general calorie intake.
Veganism is a very unnatural and unhealthy way to feed yourself and there is a ton of ways to screw it up. As can be seen by the occasional parents that kill their child or their cat with it. In actual reality, veganism is only possible with supplements made by the modern chemical industry. Of course, like any cult, vegans are in denial about that. That said, except when they kill kids, vegans are pretty harmless and their obnoxious virtue-signalling should be regarded with amused tolerance.
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Hmm. Hitler was vegetarian, veganism was not really possible back then. Putin and Trump are not vegan and Xi is not either.
Who do you mean?
Anyways, I suspect correlation, not causation.
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No problem. The idea is still valid.
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Betcha Lenin, Stalin, Engels, and Mao weren't vegans either.
Don't forget to read my sig.
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>"vegans are pretty harmless and their obnoxious virtue-signalling should be regarded with amused tolerance."
[joke time]
How do you know if someone is a vegan?
Don't worry, they will tell you over and over...
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:) that joke's been doing the rounds for decades :P
I guess it's a bit like "how do you if someone is deathly allergic to peanuts? They'll tell you over and over".
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Hahaha, no. Risk management and virtue signaling are nothing alike. One is the smart thing to do, the other is dumb and needy.
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Cholesterol is not one molecule.
A lot of your brain is made of types of it.
Complex systems involving certain light ldls and other factors can ultimately result in inflammatory blockages.
The two populations with the highest life expectancy are Hong Kong and Macau.
They also have the highest per capita consumption of meat.
Again, it's a complex system but "eat plants to live long" is disproved.
but it worked for COVID! (Score:2)
I took drugs for horses and got COVID and I didn't die! Social Media saved my life!
Thank you, Trump! Jail those scientists who forced Trump to shut down the economy!
We're #1! We're #1! invade Canada to lower my gas prices! Oh, and there are no Republican pedophiles so stop looking!
What could possibly go wrong?!?! (Score:3)
Let's suddenly break a really complex system, trying to fix something short term... I mean "what could possibly go wrong?!?!"
Anyone know what specific gene they're breaking? And what typically regulates it?
I am 100% certain that most doctors still have no clue about cholesterol, plaques, etc... They keep repeating the same broken advice, is how I know.
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I wonder if CRISPR provides an "undo" option?
If you ban gene editing in this country, then other nations and private islands will supply gene services to the rich. At least the rich can be our guinea pigs instead of the other way around. (I already suspect Zuckerberg is a test.)
Either way, active gene editing is out of the bag and will gradually become widespread one way or another. (I already have a list of inherited flaws I'd love to fix.)
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I wonder if CRISPR provides an "undo" option?
Or a backup for that matter.
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They're effectively introducing a rare genetic mutation. They found some people who have extremely low cholesterol, and it's due to one broken gene, so they introduce that change in some percentage of the liver cells to reduce the cholesterol levels. They can do studies of people who already have the mutation naturally to get an idea of any expected health impacts.
A year is a bit short (Score:4, Insightful)
For a change this fundamental, you want 10-20 years of observation. That said, the study was on people with a massive problem and hence the ethics of it is fine IMO. Just should not be anything for general use anytime soon.
With the Snip of a Gene (Score:2)
> With the Snip of a Gene
Don't make it sound more easy than it is. Snipping that gene needed a lot of research.