Triglyceride expression

Current epidemiologic reports claim an important role for triglycerides in coronary artery disease (CAD). By cross-sectional data analysis, the role of triglycerides was assessed in 1726 consecutive patients investigated for chest pain, 1119 with CAD and 607 with normal coronaries. Besides study of male and female patients as separate groups, the males were divided into age groups of below 40 years, 41 to 50 years, 51 to 60 years and over 61 years. The female patients were divided into those below 50 years and over 51 years because of smaller numbers. Using the mean value for cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and body mass index for normals as the demarcation line, logistic regression analysis was carried out to study their association in the patients with CAD and normals. Results showed that while the odds ratio for total cholesterol were higher for the younger age groups, the odds ratio for triglycerides were consistently higher for the groups over 51 years both male and female. It is speculated that there may be a difference in the relative importance of lipid fractions with reference to age in the development of atherosclerotic plaque with cholesterol playing a more important role in younger people and triglycerides being equally or more important in older people, on the basis of metabolic handling of lipid fractions.