High prevalence of hypertriglyceridaemia and apolipoprotein abnormalities in coronary artery disease

Abstract

Serum lipids and apolipoproteins A-I and B were measured in 174 men aged < 60 with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease and in 572 healthy control men. Two thirds of the patients had raised age-corrected values offasting serum cholesterol and/or triglyceride and/or a low high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol compared with the controls. Eighteen (30%) of the 61 normolipidaemic patients had a concentration of serum apolipoprotein A-I below the 5th percentile of 233 controls. In normolipidaemic patients on β blockers the relative prevalence of serum low density lipoprotein (LDL)-apolipoprotein B values above the 95th percentile of 339 controls was significantly increased. Discriminant fumction analysis showed that a raised concentration of serum triglyceride was the best disc rimnant between patients and controls, with raised LDL-apolipoprotein B and reduced apolipoprotein A-I coming second only to triglyceride in analyses where each was separately compared with all the lipid variables. These associations were highly significant and were independent of other influences, including blockade. These findings re-emphasise the importance of hypertriglyceridaemia as a risk factor and confirm that apolipoprotein abnormalities occur frequently in coronary disease, even in normolipidaemic patients.