More relief could be in sight for mortgage-holders as an expected slowdown in inflation paves the way for a second interest rate cut.

Economists and market analysts widely tip official data on Wednesday to show core inflation falling faster than Reserve Bank of Australia forecasts.

The trimmed mean, the central bank’s preferred inflation measure, is expected to come in at 0.6 per cent for the March quarter in the Australian Bureau of Statistics numbers.

That would bring annual inflation below three per cent for the first time since December 2021, and the predicted 2.8 per cent inflation result would arrive three months ahead of Reserve Bank forecasts.

Headline inflation was expected to fall from 2.4 to 2.3 per cent, which sits at the lower end of the central bank’s target range, but the measure was still being distorted by energy bill rebates, BetaShares chief economist David Bassanese said.

“We’ve seen a moderation in housing costs, with a flattening-off of rents and housing construction costs over the last six months or so, and we’ve also seen slowing wages growth filtering through to service sector inflation,” he told AAP.

“They’re the two key underlying drivers of the disinflation trend.”

In December, the Reserve Bank cut the cash rate for the first time in four years, from 4.35 per cent to 4.10 per cent.

If passed on to borrowers in full, each 25 basis point cut saves about $103 per month on an average home loan of $640,000.

Mr Bassanese, along with many other economists and analysts, expects another 25 basis point rate cut in May and two more by the end of 2025.

Ahead of the figures and Saturday’s federal election, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has touted his government’s record on the economy and lowering inflation “substantially”.

But the coalition points to an International Monetary Fund report that lifted its 2025 inflation forecast for Australia to 2.5 per cent, up from two per cent.

“Labor has not beaten inflation and Labor won’t beat inflation, because they will not cut waste; they will not slash red tape; they will not make it easier for businesses to invest to boost growth,” shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said.

Julia has been forced to look at dropping full-time study so she can work and earn enough to afford a room in a share house as Australia’s housing crisis deepens.

The Brisbane student’s story is one example of the sacrifices people on low incomes are making to get by, with housing the big expense they struggle to cover.

The housing crisis is “the worst it’s ever been”, a leading charity has warned as it urges governments to step up and build.

Fewer than one in 100 full-time workers on the minimum wage can afford places to rent, the annual Rental Affordability Snapshot for Anglicare Australia has found.

It’s even grimmer for a person out of work, with the survey of more than 51,000 rental listings showing just three were affordable for someone on JobSeeker.

People on the lowest incomes “don’t stand a chance” and it was up to governments to step up instead of leaving housing to the private sector, Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said.

“The government spends eight times as much propping up private investors as it does on building homes for people who need them,” Ms Chambers said when releasing the annual snapshot.

“This approach is wrong and it’s supercharging rents and house prices.”

The snapshot surveyed 51,238 rental listings and found only 0.7 per cent were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage and just 0.3 per cent were affordable for a person on the age pension.

Only 0.1 per cent were affordable for a person on the disability support pension while none were affordable for a person on JobSeeker or on the youth allowance.

Julia, a student on youth allowance, has been trying to find an affordable room in a share house in Brisbane.

“I want to focus on study, but I am looking at dropping to part-time so that I can work more hours. It’s the only way I can live,” she said.

Rent assistance doesn’t kick in for people on youth allowance until they are in rental stress and it works against people in share houses.

“I can’t get rent assistance unless I take on a bigger lease but that will only make things worse,” said Julia, who has received Anglicare emergency assistance.

“I feel like everything is geared against me studying to get ahead.”

More than a million low-income Australians were impacted by the rental crisis, Anglicare Sydney CEO Simon Miller told AAP.

“The really concerning thing is that the people who make our communities work, the heartbeat of our communities, the people in the care economy or hospitality, can no longer afford to rent,” he said.

Governments needed to commit to funding and building more affordable social housing, Mr Miller said, with 25,000 new homes needed in NSW over the next five years.

Cait, a single woman on JobSeeker trying to find a Sydney rental with her lease due to end, said it was impossible to find somewhere affordable.

“I’m applying for everything I can find but it’s looking bleak,” she said.

“I don’t know where I’m going to go.

“I’m thinking of setting up a crowdfunder to get some help, but the uncertainty is very stressful.”

A centre-left party comes from behind in the polls to win an election fought over living costs and Donald Trump.

Sound familiar?

With just days until Saturday’s poll, political insiders are dissecting the results of an election on the other side of the world.

Canada’s ruling Liberal Party – which shares a name with Australia’s conservative party but occupies the other side of the political spectrum – has won enough seats to retain government.

It’s a remarkable outcome for the Liberals, who were 20 percentage points behind in the polls earlier this year.

The progressive party looked headed for a crushing defeat until the US president started attacking Canada’s economy and threatening its sovereignty, suggesting it should become the 51st state.

Donald Trump’s actions enraged Canadians and stoked a surge in nationalism that helped the Liberals flip the script and win a fourth-straight term.

The opposition wanted to make the election a referendum on former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who was waning in popularity as food, power and housing prices surged.

But Mr Trudeau soon quit and was replaced as leader ahead of the election, with disaffected voters flocking back to his party as Mr Trump threatened annexation and a trade war.

There are obvious differences between the Canadian experience and Australian election but also some parallels, including the upending influence of Mr Trump.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reflected on this trend during an interview with one of the world’s most popular podcasts, The Rest is Politics.

He described the US president’s impact on the Australian campaign as far less than people believed, unlike in Canada, where it was “brutal”.

“It is more distant but certainly the uncertainty that is in the global economy and the world has an impact as well,” Mr Albanese said.

During the podcast interview, Mr Albanese referenced the US president in relation to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Mr Dutton was “channelling some other world leaders we’re seeing” and “bringing a machismo” to politics, he said.

Mr Dutton’s campaign has suffered by association with the US president, with Labor accusing the coalition of adopting a Trumpian agenda through measures including public service job cuts.

After lagging in opinion polls, Labor is considered in the box seat to form minority government, if not obtain power in its own right.

Political strategist Jack Milroy, who has worked on progressive campaigns in Canada and Australia, said the US relationship would be less of a factor on Saturday but voters were still conscious of the global instability.

“The Canadian example has kind of shown that a strong approach to the US seems to pay dividends politically,” he told AAP.

“The Labor Party is in a good position for our election, but it will be interesting to see how they relate to the US going forward.”

Mr Milroy will be looking to see whether support for Australia’s two major parties increases in response to global headwinds, as happened in Canada.

Published polling suggests Australian voters have drifted from Labor and the coalition in favour of independents and minor parties.

“What will be very interesting is if we see a reversal of that trend to follow the Canadian example,” he said.

“And in that search for security, voters come back to the major parties.”

Mr Albanese will address the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will begin the day in Melbourne.

Australians who work from home have cut their commutes while increasing their working hours and saving money.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced those who could to set up home offices and work remotely as lockdowns were implemented across the world.

Five years on, 36 per cent of Australians still regularly work from home, including about 60 per cent of professionals and managers.

While those who do hybrid or fully-remote roles earn 5.8 per cent less than those who don’t, there are significant savings from the reduced time and money spent on commuting.

One beneficiary of a hybrid working arrangement is public servant Max, 31, who lives in Melbourne’s north.

Splitting time between the office and working from home saves him a 45-minute commute each morning and night when he opts to stay at the house.

“It saves you time either side of work, so you’re more able to do other things and have a better work-life balance,” he told AAP.

“Even if you work from home twice a week you’re saving a few hours and a few dollars, which isn’t nothing.”

Another to benefit from the flexibility – engineering consultant Claire Pollock – said she and her employer got a win when working from home.

“It allows the small around the house jobs to be done during the week with the saved commuting time,” she told AAP.

“This gives me a better work-life balance and also enables me to be more flexible with my availability hours with my employer – which is a win-win.”

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia analysed data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, and found people who worked from home commuted on average 15.7 per cent less than if they were office-based.

Working fully remotely reduced commuting by 4.25 hours each week, while those who work from home half the time spent 2.12 hours less commuting.

People who worked solely from home were able to work nearly 20 per cent more hours than those who did not.

Workforce participation has also increased by 4.4 per cent compared to pre-COVID trends.

“Workers are saving time and money on their commute, and in many cases are also able to work more hours or even get a job, where they couldn’t do so before,” CEDA economist James Brooks said.

“Commuting less brings savings on public transport fares and fuel costs, but there’s also savings on time.”

CEDA has calculated the time saving from the lesser commute to be worth an estimated $5308 a year based on average wages.

This is 21 per cent more than the $4400 in wages CEDA had previously calculated was being lost by Australians who work from home, Mr Brooks said.

Previous CEDA research has shown Australians value working from home and were willing to accept lower wages due to the other benefits.

Since the pandemic, mothers of young children, primary carers and people with an impactful health condition have increased their participation in jobs that can be done remotely.

“This suggests groups that had previously faced barriers to on-site work are more likely to have a job now because they can work from home,” Mr Brooks said.

US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to soften the effects of his car tariffs, the White House says.

Administration officials said the moves on Tuesday would alleviate some duties on foreign parts in cars manufactured in the United States while importers would not have to pay double tariffs on both cars and the materials used to make them.

“The president will sign the executive order on auto tariffs later today, and we will release it, as we always do,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about the administration’s economic policy agenda.

The administration has yet to formally announce the measures to soften the tariffs but administration officials have confirmed a report in the Wall Street Journal that companies paying car tariffs would no longer be charged other levies, such as on aluminium and steel. 

Reimbursements would be given for such tariffs that had already been paid.

“This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement late on Monday which did not include details.

Trump is travelling to Michigan on Tuesday to commemorate his first 100 days in office, during which the Republican president has upended the global economic order.

Softening the effect of car levies is his administration’s latest move to show some flexibility on tariffs which have sown turmoil in financial markets, created uncertainty for businesses and sparked fears of a sharp economic slowdown.

Car makers said earlier on Monday they were expecting Trump to issue relief from the car tariffs ahead of his trip to Michigan, home to the Detroit Three car makers and more than 1000 major car suppliers.

General Motors, CEO Mary Barra and Ford CEO Jim Farley praised the planned changes.

“We believe the president’s leadership is helping level the playing field for companies like GM and allowing us to invest even more in the US economy,” Barra said.

Farley said the changes “will help mitigate the impact of tariffs on automakers, suppliers and consumers”.

But the uncertainty unleashed across the car sector by Trump’s tariffs was still on full display on Tuesday when GM pulled its annual forecast even as it reported strong quarterly sales and profit. 

In an unusual move, the car maker also opted to delay a scheduled conference call with analysts until later in the week, after the details of tariff changes were known.

Last week, a coalition of US car industry groups urged Trump not to impose 25 per cent tariffs on imported car parts, warning they would cut vehicle sales and raise prices.

Trump had said earlier he planned to impose tariffs of 25 per cent on car parts no later than May 3.

“Tariffs on auto parts will scramble the global automotive supply chain and set off a domino effect that will lead to higher auto prices for consumers, lower sales at dealerships and will make servicing and repairing vehicles both more expensive and less predictable,” the industry groups said in the letter.

The letter from the groups representing GM, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai and others, was sent to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce’s Lutnick.

“Most auto suppliers are not capitalised for an abrupt tariff-induced disruption. Many are already in distress and will face production stoppages, layoffs and bankruptcy,” the letter added, noting “it only takes the failure of one supplier to lead to a shutdown of an automaker’s production line”.

One of Australia’s most decorated journalists has been accused of not telling the “complete truth” about incidents that could allow disgraced veteran Ben Roberts-Smith to clear his name.

Roberts-Smith is pushing to reopen his 2024 appeal to earlier defamation findings that he – on the balance of probabilities – committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

He argues there was a miscarriage of justice during his appeal because journalist Nick McKenzie, who first levelled the war crimes accusation in 2018 reports, unlawfully obtained details about the former soldier’s legal strategy.

Roberts-Smith alleges his ex-wife Emma Roberts accessed his email accounts and passed privileged communications onto McKenzie, who used them to shape his defence.

In a taped call between McKenzie and Roberts-Smith’s ex-lover – known during the defamation proceedings as Person 17 – the journalist tells her that Ms Roberts and her friend Danielle Scott had been “actively briefing us on his legal strategy”.

Roberts-Smith’s lawyer Arthur Moses SC told the Federal Court on Tuesday there were further examples of privileged information being sent to McKenzie which he hadn’t disclosed.

He cited a 2020 text from Ms Scott in which she told him Ms Roberts was going to notify authorities about a potential family law breach by her ex-husband.

“Always better to be on the front foot in terms of what they’re planning,” Ms Scott told McKenzie.

“I think you owe me two times beers now.”

On the same day, Roberts-Smith’s lawyers emailed about a family court matter and copied in one of his email addresses.

Mr Moses said the message was another example of a “heads-up” to McKenzie which contained “blatant privileged information” that should have been flagged with his lawyers.

Privileged information is confidential information that is legally protected from disclosure, such as discussions about a case between a lawyer and their client.

McKenzie wrote in an affidavit that he had passed on all relevant communications with Ms Scott to Nine’s lawyers Peter Bartlett and Dean Levitan, but he had never been told they were privileged or that he had acted improperly.

Mr Moses pushed for both lawyers to give evidence about whether they knew about the privileged communications and whether they had advised McKenzie about privilege.

“We have to know what’s going on here,” he said.

“We’re not being told the complete truth by Mr McKenzie.”

Lawyers for Mr Bartlett and Mr Levitan argued it was not established that any of the information was privileged and there was no evidence to show McKenzie had made use of it.

They said the journalist would have had to “significantly misuse” the information for it to have led to a miscarriage of justice.

Roberts-Smith argues the miscarriage of justice arose from the leak of privileged information which directed Nine’s legal strategy and influenced the assessment of his credibility.

McKenzie had set his Signal messaging app to delete messages after a short period when he was allegedly receiving confidential information during Roberts-Smith’s trial, the court was told.

Justice Nye Perram has reserved his decision on whether Mr Bartlett and Mr Levitan should be called to give evidence on Thursday.

Roberts-Smith rose to prominence in 2011 after he was awarded Australia’s highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, for single-handedly taking out machine-gun posts to protect pinned-down colleagues in Afghanistan.

In 2023, Justice Anthony Besanko ruled it had been proven to a civil standard that he had been complicit in the murder of four unarmed men during deployment in Afghanistan, as reported by Nine in 2018.

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The opposition leader insists there’s still a pathway to victory but has been criticised for stoking culture wars as he fights for conservative voter preferences.

Public polling has tracked away from the coalition over the course of the campaign and Peter Dutton has little time to turn it around before election day on Saturday.

Mr Dutton maintains internal numbers are more optimistic than the public ones, as he hits more than two dozen seats in the final week of campaigning.

He’s credited “quiet Australians” for his optimism, saying people in outer suburbs who believe Labor hasn’t delivered for them would turn to the coalition.

The parties’ polling was positive and those numbers reflected “the mood that the marginal seat members are reporting back to me at the pre-polling”, he said before campaigning in the ultra-marginal NSW south coast seat of Gilmore.

The term “quiet Australians” was famously used by former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison after his unexpected victory in 2019, which defied polls that consistently predicted a Labor victory.

The opposition leader on Tuesday also visited Whitlam in the NSW Southern Highlands, where incumbent Labor MP Stephen Jones is retiring.

Anthony Albanese criticised the opposition leader for stoking culture wars, most recently for criticising Welcome to Country ceremonies.

“Peter Dutton has spent a political career stoking division, trying to turn Australians against each other, trying to start culture wars,” the prime minister said while campaigning in Brisbane.

“I am not interested in culture wars, I am interested in fighting for Australians.”

Mr Dutton’s office was vandalised on Tuesday, with the shopfront covered in red paint.

Posters criticising his stance on refugees, comparing him to US President Donald Trump, calling him a fascist and hosting the Indigenous rights slogan, “always was, always will be Aboriginal land” were stuck on the windows.

Labor has sought to distance itself from the debate over whether Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies and acknowledgements to Country have become overdone.

Coalition campaign spokesman James Paterson said the opposition leader hadn’t proactively made the ceremonies an issue, but he was asked about it in press conferences and responded honestly.

Escalating a divisive debate was “the wrong way for this nation to deal with its practices and with cultural elements that are important to both sides”, former Liberal Indigenous affairs minister Ken Wyatt said

“When you start to politicise elements of Aboriginal affairs or cultural practices, then you start a process of allowing division to occur,” he said when asked about Mr Dutton’s critique. 

Mr Albanese has also made a point of referring to the coalition’s preference deal with One Nation as Labor paints the opposition leader as a divisive figure.

Mr Dutton avoided answering why his party was preferencing One Nation second after former Liberal prime minister John Howard – who Mr Dutton has spoken of as a role model – put them last.

While the opposition leader has worked to shake off criticisms he’s borrowing policies from Donald Trump, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says Liberals have welcomed conservative ideas she was putting forward before the US president was elected.

“A lot of the sitting members within the Liberal Party agree with my policies, they know we’re on the same page,” she told AAP.

Support from right-wing minor parties could still help the coalition get over the line with preference flows to the opposition “dramatically higher” than the last election in 2022, Mr Morrison’s former media chief Andrew Carswell said.

A Roy Morgan poll showed Labor remained on track to form a majority government, leading 53 to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The latest YouGov poll showed One Nation had a 10.5 per cent primary vote, more than double its 2022 result.

US President Donald Trump’s administration will move to reduce the impact of his automotive tariffs by alleviating some duties imposed on foreign parts in domestically manufactured cars and keeping tariffs on cars made abroad from piling on top of other ones, officials says.

“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement provided by the White House.

“This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development, said the move meant car companies paying tariffs would not be charged for other levies, such as those on steel and aluminium, and that reimbursements would be given for such tariffs that were already paid.

A White House official confirmed the report and indicated the move would be made official on Tuesday.

Trump is travelling to Michigan on Tuesday to commemorate his first 100 days in office, a period that the Republican president has used to upend the global economic order.

The move to soften the effects of auto levies is the latest by his administration to show some flexibility on tariffs, which have sown turmoil in financial markets, created uncertainty for businesses and sparked fears of a sharp economic slowdown.

Automakers said earlier on Monday they were expecting Trump to issue relief from the auto tariffs ahead of his trip to Michigan, which is home to the Detroit Three automakers and more than 1000 major auto suppliers.

Last week, a coalition of US auto industry groups urged Trump not to impose 25 per cent tariffs on imported auto parts, warning they would cut vehicle sales and raise prices.

Trump had said earlier he planned to impose tariffs of 25 per cent on auto parts no later than May 3.

“Tariffs on auto parts will scramble the global automotive supply chain and set off a domino effect that will lead to higher auto prices for consumers, lower sales at dealerships and will make servicing and repairing vehicles both more expensive and less predictable,” the industry groups said in the letter.

The letter from the groups representing General Motors, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai and others, was sent to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce’s Lutnick.

Peter Dutton is relying on “quiet Australians” to get him over the line as an former political insider says protest votes could offer him a path to The Lodge.

The opposition is seeking to defy a campaign-trail poll slump that has delivered Labor a significant lead, although the coalition maintains its internal numbers are more optimistic than the public ones.

Mr Dutton will hit more than two dozen seats in the final week of campaigning ahead of Saturday’s poll.

He said internal polling was positive and that gave him great confidence for the election result.

“(That) really reflects, frankly, the mood that the marginal seat members are reporting back to me at the pre-polling,” he told Brisbane radio station 4BC on Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of quiet Australians … particularly people in suburbs, who believe that the government hasn’t delivered for them.

“I think there are a few surprises coming and there’s no doubt in my mind that we can win this election.”

The term “quiet Australians” was famously used by former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison after his unexpected victory in 2019, which defied polls that consistently predicted a Labor victory.

Mr Morrison’s former media chief Andrew Carswell said he hadn’t written off the coalition, which needs to gain more than 20 seats to govern in majority.

The path to victory was narrow but still possible with public polling out of step with what was happening on the ground, the consultant told AAP.

“While Labor is very much the short odds to be in minority government, it will be closer than people think,” he said.

A Roy Morgan poll showed Labor remained on track to form a majority government, leading 53 to 47 per cent on a two-party preferred basis despite a slight improvement in the coalition’s position.

Support from right-wing minor parties could still help the coalition get over the line despite majority government being “awfully difficult”, Mr Carswell said. 

“The preferences that come from One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots and other centre-right minor parties to the coalition is dramatically higher than in 2022,” he said.

The latest YouGov poll showed One Nation had a 10.5 per cent primary vote, more than double its 2022 primary.

Mr Carswell added Victoria was also looking strong for the coalition, particularly in outer-suburban seats where cost-of-living pressures were hitting hardest.

But Labor sources say the party has mitigated some of the brand damage from an unpopular state government and is tracking better that it was just weeks ago.

Meanwhile, party figures have heaped further pressure on the coalition to release its full policy costings and come clean about how it would pay for nuclear power plants and where it would make cuts to the public service.

The government released its costings on Monday.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the updated numbers, which show a $1 billion improvement to the budget bottom line compared to previous estimates, meant all Labor’s spending commitments had been offset.

“Now it’s really time for Peter Dutton and his team to release their costings and their secret cuts that they’ll need to make to pay for their nuclear reactors,” she told ABC TV.

The opposition is yet to detail where it will cull a foreshadowed 41,000 people from the public service after it said it wouldn’t touch frontline services and only target Canberra-based jobs.

About three-fifths of the federal public service is based in the ACT.

Labor says the coalition can’t achieve the figure without cutting national security agencies or service staff, such as those helping to reduce waiting times for veterans’ pensions.

A test that assesses certain particles in the blood could predict a person’s risk of developing heart disease more accurately than measuring cholesterol, according to a study.

Switching the focus on detecting the level of proteins associated with so-called “bad cholesterol” could “potentially save lives”, researchers said.

Cholesterol, a fatty substance mostly made by the liver and found in certain foods, is essential for maintaining healthy cells, but having too much in the blood can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

In the UK, if doctors suspect a person is at risk of heart disease, they will usually check the patient’s blood pressure and family history, as well as taking a blood sample to measure the amount of different types of fat in the blood, including cholesterol.

However, researchers in Sweden and the US suggest measuring levels of lipoproteins – particles comprising protein and fat that transport cholesterol and other fats in the bloodstream – may be a more accurate risk predictor.

There are four main classes of lipoprotein, three of which have a special protein on their surface called apolipoprotein B (apoB).

They are known as “bad cholesterol” as they can deposit cholesterol in the walls of blood vessels when found in large numbers.

The fourth class helps remove excess cholesterol from the blood and transports it back to the liver, often known as “good cholesterol”.

Jakub Morze, postdoctoral fellow at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, said: “This is the largest study of its kind to date and the results show for the first time the relative importance of the three major families of lipoprotein for the potential risk of heart disease.

“It was previously unclear if two patients with the same total level of ‘bad cholesterol’, but that differ in their carrier characteristics – lipoprotein type, size, lipid content – have the same risk of heart disease.”

For the study, academics analysed blood samples from 207,368 people in the UK Biobank with no history of heart disease.

“We found that apoB is the best marker when testing for risk of heart disease,” Mr Morze added.

“Since apoB indicates the total number of ‘bad cholesterol’ particles, measuring it offers a more accurate test than standard cholesterol measures.

“That does not mean conventional tests are ineffective; they generally perform well. However, in about one in 12 patients, standard cholesterol tests may underestimate heart disease risk, which is important to consider, since 20 – 40 per cent of all first-time occurrences of CVD are fatal.

“By switching to apoB testing, we can improve that accuracy and potentially save lives.”

Clemens Wittenbecher, assistant professor of precision medicine and diagnostics at Chalmers University of Technology, said the results, published in the European Heart Journal, show that “apoB particle count could eventually replace the standard blood cholesterol test”.

He added that “lipoprotein(a) also needs to be tested for to get a better picture of lipid-related CVD risk”.

“The blood test for these two markers is commercially available now and would be cheap and easy enough to implement,” Prof Wittenbecher said.