PLA Chapter Update: Moving Forward Together!

As President-Elect of the Pacific Lipid Association (PLA), I am super excited to share with you that the 2023 year is off to a great start! This issue of LipidSpin is a collaboration between PLA and SWLA with a focus on Pushing Boundaries. My immense gratitude goes out to all who have contributed. 

I hope all members of the NLA are enjoying the Pentathlon Challenge. You could earn your PLA some points by following the link lipid.org/pentathlon and participating in the free educational opportunities, posting on social media, referring a friend, and much more! We hope you will continue your social media engagements and encourage your fellows and members-in-training to join NLA. 

Other chapters better watch out for PLA, we are willing to learn, and ready to win! After claiming victory (and bragging rights), I hope to see you at the fall meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, which will be hosted by SWLA and PLA!

Members of the PLA Chapter have been providing clinical care, advancing research, presenting, and publishing in all areas related to lipid management. I have highlighted a few of the great accomplishments by our PLA members this year in the following paragraphs. They are making a dramatic difference by enhancing the practice of lipid management in clinical medicine.

Congrats to Dr. Lane Benes for her promotion as Director of the Evergreen Health Hospital lipid clinic in Kirkland, WA, and co-author of a book titled, Fast Facts: Familial Chylomicronemia Syndrome in 2022. Dr. Benes also co-chaired the Washington state ACC conference in 2022.

NLA Nutrition Task Force leaders Julie Bolick, RD, Carol Kirkpatrick, PhD, and I joined lead author Lauren Williams, RDN and many others to author the NLA Clinical Perspective on “Nutrition Interventions for Youth with Dyslipidemia”.

Kudos to Past PLA President Dr. Carol Kirkpatrick for her recent articles “How Low Should One Go in Reducing Carbohydrate?” in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology and “Keto Is Trending: Implications for Body Weight and Lipid Management.” in Current Cardiology Reports.

Kudos to those who presented at the 14th Annual Orange County Symposium for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Orange, CA on October 29th, 2022. Dr. Nathan Wong (Chair): Lipoprotein(a): An Underappreciated Genetic Factor and Emerging Therapies; Dr. Paul Rosenblit (Co-chair): Hypertriglyceridemia, Remnants, and cardiovascular disease; Dr. Rob Greenfield (Co-chair): The Aging Heart: The Role of Lifestyle, Inflammation, and other Factors; Dr. Yehuda Handelsman: Multispecialty Practice Recommendations for the Management of Diabetes, CardioRenal, and Metabolic Diseases; and I presented Which Diet is the Best? A New Approach to Discussing Diet and Weight: Is It Time to Acknowledge Weight Stigma?

Congrats to Dr. Savitha Subramanian for her recent paper “Approach to the Patient with Hypertriglyceridemia” in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Savitha was recently quoted in a NY times article “Do Statins increase the risk of Diabetes” on October 25th, 2022.

Kudos to Dr. Michael Wilkinson! Coauthor of “Lipoprotein(a): Evidence for Role as a Causal Risk Factor in Cardiovascular Disease and Emerging Therapies” in the Journal of Clinical Medicine and “Inclisiran Creates Unique Opportunities and Challenges for Patient Access to Therapy: Early Experience in a United States Lipid Clinic” in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology. Mike also presented on: What Is a Lipid/Preventive Cardiology Clinic? for the California ACC Fellow-in-Training group. 

I am excited to share I co-authored three papers this past year:

1. “Red Yeast Rice for Dyslipidemias and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction: A position paper of the International Lipid Expert Panel on behalf of the International Lipid Expert Panel (ILEP)” in Pharmacological Research.
2.  “Effectiveness of Medical Nutrition Therapy in the Management of Adult Dyslipidemia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology.
3. “Controversial Dietary Patterns: A High Yield Primer for Clinicians” in the American Journal of Medicine.

On a final note, the NLA plans to publish a paper in May/June 2023 entitled “Nutrition Interventions in Adults with Dyslipidemia: An NLA Clinical Perspective.” Our stellar author team consists of Cheryl Anderson, EdD, Karen Aspry, MD, Julie Bolick, RD, Penny Kris-Etherton, PhD, Kristina Petersen, PhD, and Kevin Maki, PhD, led by me and Carol Kirkpatrick, PhD, as co-chairs.

Thus, our PLA members have continued to enhance lipid management through interdisciplinary clinical care, publications, and education. With the fabulous leadership of NLA President Kevin Maki, PhD, and all chapter presidents including our PLA President Michelle Taylor, ANP-BC, I see remarkable things to come in 2023 and beyond for our PLA Chapter and the NLA. Thank you, Michelle! Thank you, Kevin!

I hope to see you at the upcoming NLA Scientific Sessions in the early part of June 2023. Thank you once again to all the authors for their contributions to this edition of LipidSpin.