Welding and Cardiovascular Disease
When it comes to cholesterol the thing to worry about is too little HDL. Your total cholesterol level can be high and your LDL can be high but if your HDL is up there you're swimming in the shallow end of the risk pool. That's what makes "Acute Decrease in HDL Cholesterol Associated With Exposure to Welding Fumes" so interesting.
The finding of a large decrease in HDL without effect upon other lipids following exposure to pm2.5 in welding fumes provides, if replicated, a biological mechanism for some of the maladies laid at the feet of pm2.5. Low levels of HDL lead to inflammation and chronic inflammation leads to a variety of illnesses like hardening of the arteries.
