Regular paperLipoprotein subclasses and coronary artery calcium in postmenopausal women from the healthy women study☆
Section snippets
Methods
Between 1983 and 1985, 541 premenopausal women, aged 42 to 50 years, were enrolled in the Healthy Women Study (HWS), a longitudinal study of the effects of menopause on cardiovascular risk. The HWS measured standard demographic and cardiovascular risk factors, including triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol by conventional separation and enzymatic methods.20 When the women were 8 years postmenopause, lipoprotein subclasses and coronary calcification were
Results
Table 1reports participant characteristics at the visit when the women were approximately 8 years postmenopause. The mean age was 61.7 years, with a range of 57 to 66 years, and 13% of the women were current smokers. In these postmenopausal women, the VLDL subclasses were evenly distributed between small, medium, and large particles. However, both LDL and HDL subclasses contained a higher proportion of large particles.
Table 1 also reports the age-adjusted means of the enzymatically determined
Discussion
In these postmenopausal women, increased coronary calcification was associated with higher levels of small LDL and large VLDL, more LDL particles, smaller mean LDL size, and lower levels of large HDL. The associations with small LDL, LDL particles, and large VLDL remained significant after adjustment for LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, age, smoking, and systolic blood pressure. These results suggest that prediction of cardiovascular risk in postmenopausal women may be improved
References (30)
- et al.
Association of plasma triglyceride concentration and LDL particle diameter, density, and chemical composition with premature coronary artery disease in men and women
J Lipid Res
(1993) - et al.
Investigation of low density lipoprotein subfractions as a coronary risk factor in normotriglyceridaemic men
Atherosclerosis
(1996) - et al.
Quantification of coronary artery calcium using ultrafast computed tomography
J Am Coll Cardiol
(1990) - et al.
Role of plasma triglyceride in the regulation of plasma low density lipoprotein (LDL) subfractionsrelative contribution of small, dense LDL to coronary heart disease risk
Atherosclerosis
(1994) - et al.
Susceptibility of small, dense, low-density lipoproteins to oxidative modification in subjects with the atherogenic lipoprotein phenotype, pattern B
Am J Med
(1993) - et al.
Effect of niacin and atorvastatin on lipoprotein subclasses in patients with atherogenic dyslipidemia
Am J Cardiol
(2001) - Labarthe DR. Age, sex, race and heredity. In: Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases: A Global...
- Lenfant C. Task Force on Research in Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. Circulation...
Executive Summary of the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults
JAMA
(2001)- et al.
The established major risk factors underlying the epidemic of coronary and cardiovascular disease
CVD Prevent
(1998)
Prediction of coronary heart disease using risk factor categories
Circulation
Traditional risk factors and subclinical disease measures as predictors of first myocardial infarction in older adultsthe Cardiovascular Health Study
Arch Intern Med
Prevention Conference V. Beyond secondary prevention. Identifying the high-risk patient for primary preventionnoninvasive tests of atherosclerotic burden
Circulation
Risk factors for coronary and cerebral atherosclerosis
Low-density lipoprotein subclass patterns and risk of myocardial infarction
JAMA
Cited by (93)
Hypertriglyceridemia in Youth
2022, Journal of PediatricsAssociations of HDL metrics with coronary artery calcium score and density among women traversing menopause
2021, Journal of Lipid ResearchVasomotor symptoms and lipids/lipoprotein subclass metrics in midlife women: Does level of endogenous estradiol matter? The SWAN HDL Ancillary Study
2020, Journal of Clinical LipidologyCitation Excerpt :Endogenous E2 levels appeared to explain these associations to nonsignificance, suggesting a critical contribution of E2 levels in this relationship. Recent studies that have investigated novel metrics of lipoproteins in midlife women have shown that a more atherogenic lipoprotein profile may be defined by smaller HDL and LDL particle sizes, when quantified by NMR, compared to larger particles.29,30,38 A study conducted in postmenopausal women showed that smaller HDL size and lower concentrations of total LDL-P were associated with incident cardiovascular events.30
Impact of the modified Atkins diet on cardiovascular health in adults with epilepsy
2018, Epilepsy and Behavior
- ☆
This project was funded by Grant No. 5R01 HL28266-18 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for the Healthy Women Study. Some of these results were presented at the American Heart Association’s 41st Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, March 2001. The accompanying abstract was published in Circulation 2001;103:1349–1350.