Plasma concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (hdl)-2 and hdl-3 in myocardial infarction survivors and in control subjects

Abstract

The serum concentration of several lipids, including high‐density lipoprotein‐cholesterol (HDL‐C) and the HDL subfractions, HDL‐2‐C and HDL‐3‐C, were measured in 44 male and 26 female survivors of myocardial infarction and compared with those of a control group matched for age, sex, and body weight. Serum concentrations of total cholesterol (TC) and low‐density lipoprotein (LDL‐C) were significantly increased in patients as compared to control individuals. The total HDL‐C concentration was lower in patients than in controls. By differential quantitation of HDL subfractions with a new precipitation method using polyethylene glycol, it was found that HDL‐3‐C was not significantly different between female patients and controls. The reduction of HDL‐3‐C in male patients was only of borderline significance. HDL‐2‐C in contrast was highly significantly reduced in both male and female patients. The greatest difference between patients and controls was found in the HDL‐2/HDL‐3‐C ratio. It is therefore concluded that HDL‐2‐C quantitation is a valuable risk indicator for myocardial infarction yielding a better discrimination of patients from controls than total HDL‐C quantitation.