The Particle Problem is a book about how cardiovascular medicine came to measure the wrong thing and what the right measurement is. It argues that the LDL cholesterol number that defines clinical risk for hundreds of millions of patients worldwide is a calculated estimate of a cargo measurement, not a count of the particles that actually deposit cholesterol in arterial walls. The right measurement exists. It has existed for decades. Most patients do not receive it.

The book is the present-day argument. The documentary series this site carries is its historical companion — how the field came to measure what it measures, and what was lost along the way.

The book will be serialized here, in writing, with audio narration in the author’s voice, when the documentary series concludes.