Role of triglycerides in coronary artery disease: Lessons from the prospective cardiovascular Münster study

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Abstract

The incidence of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD) was assessed in 4,576 male participants of the Prospective Cardiovascular Münster (PROCAM) study, aged 40–64 years, over a 4-year follow-up period. In this time, 122 study participants developed atherosclerotic CAD (89 definite nonfatal myocardial infarctions and 33 definite atherosclerotic CAD deaths). Univariate analysis revealed a significant association between the incidence of atherosclerotic CAD, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (p < 0.001) and triglyceride (p < 0.01) levels. The relation to HDL cholesterol remained after adjustment for other risk factors. By contrast, the relation between the incidence of atherosclerotic CAD and triglycerides disappeared if, in a multivariate analysis by means of a multiple logistic function, cholesterol or HDL cholesterol was taken into account. However, the data suggested that hypertriglyceridemia is a powerful additional coronary risk factor, when excessive triglycerides coincide with a high ratio (>5.0) of plasma low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to HDL cholesterol. Even though the prevalence of this subgroup was only 3.7%, it included a quarter of all atherosclerotic CAD events observed.

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Cited by (0)

This study was supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie, Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung NRW, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and Landesversicherungsanstalt, Westfalen, Germany.

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