SWLA Chapter Update: Robust Participation

There has been robust participation among SWLA members in the National Lipid Association activities and outstanding contributions to the field of lipidology! Here are just a few highlights of what our productive group achieved in 2023!

Planned by SWLA leadership, Christie Ballantyne, MD; Nicole Ciffone, ANP-C; Lauren Willians, RD; and Chima Nwizu, MD, the 2023 Fall Clinical Update held in Scottsdale, AZ, was a successful meeting and brought together many lipid enthusiasts from around the country. I gave a talk titled, “Lessons Learned from REDUCE-IT, STRENGTH, PROMINENT: Informing Guidelines.” Leigh Perreault, MD, gave a talk about weight management in primary care. Don Wilson, MD, a pediatrician, spoke about primary prevention in youth. Melissa Chambers, DO, featured cardiometabolic challenges in the American Indian population. We are grateful for Peter Jones, MD, and Joseph Saseen, PharmD, teaching the preconference Masters and Foundations courses. 

Stephen Raskin, MD, published a cartoon anthology titled "Picture This: The Musings of a Preventive Cardiologist.” You can view the anthology here: https://books.apple.com/us/book/picture-this/id1544710563

Kevin Forey, MD, launched his own online telehealth practice focusing on preventive medicine, metabolic disease, and personalized nutritional and lifestyle guidance. He is currently seeing patients in six states with plans to expand over the coming year.

Lauren Williams, RDN, was recently appointed a board member for the Foundation of the NLA. In October 2023 she co-founded a new pediatric lipid clinic at McLane Children's - Baylor Scott & White Health. Lauren Williams, RDN, gave a presentation at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) 2023 entitled “Nutrition Interventions for Dyslipidemia Across the Lifespan for the Prevention of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease.” 

Nicole Ciffone, NP, published a first author manuscript entitled “Lipoprotein(a): An important piece of the ASCVD risk factor puzzle across diverse populations” in the American Heart Journal Plus: Cardiology Research and Practice (Ciffone, Am Heart J Plus: Cardiol Research and Practice, 2024). You can read the full article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666602223001039.

Susan Halli Demeter, APRN, DNP, FNP, is the President of the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association. 

Munni Selagamsetty, MD, is the founder of a "Women in Medicine for Cardiometabolic Health” group in Colorado Springs. She has spoken to this group as well as a group of physicians in Denver - sponsored by Amgen. As a Preceptor for Medical Students from UCH Denver, she is excited to teach the young students all about lipids and ways to decrease ASCVD burden in her city.

In 2023, Beth Jackson, ACNS, BC, was recruited to Baylor Scott & White Temple to lead the lipid clinic and cardiometabolic center. Her outstanding accomplishments include being a member of the NLA Executive Council, Chair of the Communications Council, Co-Chair of the APP Membership committee, and earning the Clinician/Educator of the Year award from the Foundation of the NLA in 2021. She also became a Diplomat of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and completed the Foundations of Cardiometabolic Health course. Beth Jackson, ACNS, BC has been a fierce advocate for reinstating LDL-C measurement and control as a quality metric and serves as a Co-Chair on the Advocacy committee with Christie Ballantyne, MD. She co-authored the NLA clinical perspective entitled: “The Importance of Low- Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Measurement and Control as Performance Measures: A Joint Clinical Perspective from the National Lipid Association and the American Society for Preventive Cardiology” that was published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology. 
Read the full text here: https://www.lipidjournal.com/article/S1933-2874(23)00033-8/fulltext

Christie Ballantyne, MD, and I jointly authored an invited editorial titled, “Reinstating LDL-C Measurement as a Quality Metric: This is the Way”. The editorial was published in JACC Advances. Read the full paper here: https://www.jacc.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jacadv.2023.100749.

I published a paper in JACC Advances entitled “Identification and Management of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk in South Asian Populations in the U.S”. The paper was published in JACC Advances (Agarwala, JACC Advances 2023). Read the full paper here: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacadv.2023.100258

I run the longest standing South Asian Cardiovascular Health specialty clinic in the Dallas - Ft.Worth metroplex at Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano that provides culturally tailored multidisciplinary care to the South Asian community. In 2023, the healthcare system formally launched the Dil Wellness and Arterial health Longitudinal Evaluation (DILWALE) registry which has >30,000 individuals of South Asian ethnicity within the Baylor Scott & White healthcare system, the largest nonprofit healthcare system in the state of Texas. Findings from this study will be presented at the American College of Cardiology conference in April 2024. 

I chaired an American Heart Association Scientific Statement titled, “Implementation of Prevention Science to Eliminate Health Care Inequities in Achieving Cardiovasular Health”. The statement was published in Circulation. Read the full paper here: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001171.

Zahid Ahmad, MD, is the President-Elect of SWLA, co-chair of the NLA DEI committee, and recently appointed Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Lipidology. In 2023, Zahid Ahmad, MD, received the Hunninghake Award honoring outstanding abstract achievement in Familial Hypercholesterolemia research. He also received a first-place oral presentation award at the National Lipid Association Scientific Sessions 2023.

I hope that you will join us in congratulating the SWLA members on their accomplishments! There is even more in store for 2024 and beyond! The 2024 SWLA goals include: 

• Fostering more discussions around clinical trials focused on lipids, obesity, and cardiometabolic health with an emphasis on racial and ethnic minorities.
• Starting a journal club to discuss the latest research in the field of lipidology, to network with one another, create an opportunity for us to discuss challenging lipid cases, review strategies to disseminate lipid information to clinicians in our respective communities, etc.