Lipids and lipoproteins in symptomatic coronary heart disease: Distribution, intercorrelations, and significance for risk classification in 6,700 men and 1,500 women

Background. Lipid and lipoprotein profiles of coronary heart disease (CHD) patients have usually not included data on high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), except in small groups, and have not included information on women. Both aspects are meaningful in the evaluation of patients for risk classification and for the importance of HDL-C in dictating further evaluation. Methods and Results. In the screening phase of a clinical trial, we obtained lipid and lipoprotein levels under Centers for Disease Control-standardized procedures in more than 6,700 men and 1,500 women aged 40-72 years. Mean total cholesterol (TC) was higher in women (by 15-24 mg/dl) but changed little with age. Mean HDL-C, however, progressively increased with increased age for both sexes (34.4 at age of less than 50 years to 37.5 mg/dl at age 65 or older in men and from 41.3 to 44.5 mg/dl for the respective age groups in women). Triglycerides (TG) were lower in elderly groups, particularly in men (151 mg/dl in 65-year-olds versus 189 in counterparts less than 50 years). The number of previous infarctions, severity of congestive heart failure, and severity of angina were negatively correlated with mean HDL-C in a dose-response manner, whereas the association with mean TG was inverted, creating a mirror image of that observed with HDL-C. More than half of patients (52%) with TC <200 mg/dl exhibited HDL-C levels consistent with the accepted "high-risk" range of <35 mg/dl, whereas an increasing percentage of desirable HDL-C level was found with increasing levels of TC (14% with HDL-C ≥45 mg/dl at TC <200 mg/dl increasing gradually to 28% in patients with TC >260 mg/dl). Conclusions. These results provide previously unavailable information on the lipid profile of female patients and appear to strongly establish the case for obtaining all three standard blood lipid determinations (TC, HDL-C, and TG) in coronary patients as well as in the framework of detecting and classifying individuals at high risk for CHD.