Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 May;10(2):202-209.
doi: 10.12997/jla.2021.10.2.202. Epub 2021 Apr 2.

Dyslipidemia Fact Sheets in Korea 2020: an Analysis of Nationwide Population-based Data

So Mi Jemma Cho  1   2 , Hokyou Lee  2   3 , Hyeok-Hee Lee  2   3 , Jongmin Baek  2 , Ji Eun Heo  1   2 , Hyung Joon Joo  4 , Soon Jun Hong  4 , Hyeon Chang Kim  2   3 ; Korean Society of Lipid and Atherosclerosis (KSoLA) Public Relations Committee
Affiliations

Dyslipidemia Fact Sheets in Korea 2020: an Analysis of Nationwide Population-based Data

So Mi Jemma Cho et al. J Lipid Atheroscler. 2021 May.

Abstract

Objective: The Korean Society of Lipid and Atherosclerosis (KSoLA) has published the Dyslipidemia Fact Sheets in Korea 2020 to provide an overview of magnitude and management status of dyslipidemia and their recent trends therein.

Methods: The Fact Sheets were based on the analyses of Korean adults aged 20 years or older of the 2007-2018 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) and the 2002-2018 National Health Insurance Big Data (NHI-BD).

Results: Between 2007 and 2018, the crude prevalence of hypercholesterolemia increased from 9.0% to 20.7%. During the same period, its management rate also improved yet remained unsatisfactory. In 2018, the prevalence of dyslipidemia was 45.6% in men and 31.3% in women, which increased with older age and presence of metabolic abnormalities. Indeed, the number of people diagnosed with dyslipidemia has increased nearly 8-fold from 1.5 million in 2002 to 11.6 million in 2018; alongside, the number of people receiving pharmacological treatment for dyslipidemia has also risen. Of the 7.7 million people treated for dyslipidemia in 2018, statin accounted for the majority (91.8%) of lipid-lowering drug prescriptions, followed by ezetimibe (14.6%), fibrate (8.5%), and omega-3 acid (5.9%). The most frequently used combination therapy was statin plus ezetimibe, accounting for 72% of dual therapy prescriptions.

Conclusion: Dyslipidemia continues to impose a substantial disease burden in Korea. Both healthcare practitioners and patients need to actively adopt guideline-recommended lifestyle modification and pharmacological treatment for comprehensive, timely, and sustained management.

Keywords: Dyslipidemias; Hypercholesterolemia; Korea; Lipids.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Prevalence and management of hypercholesterolemia in Korean adults.
(A) Crude prevalence of hypercholesterolemia in Korean adults, 2007–2018. (B) Management status of hypercholesterolemia in Korean adults, 2016–2018.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Prevalence of dyslipidemia in Korean adults.
(A) Prevalence of dyslipidemia in Korean adults by age, 2016–2018 (p for trend: <0.0001). (B) Prevalence of dyslipidemia in Korean adults by sex and age, 2016–2018 (p for trend in men: <0.0001 and p for trend in women: <0.0001, respectively).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Diagnosis and treatment of dyslipidemia in Korean adults.
(A) Changes in the estimated number of Korean adults diagnosed, treated, and adherent to treatment for dyslipidemia, 2002–2018. (B) Changes in the estimated number of Korean adults with dyslipidemia by lipid-lowering drugs, 2002–2018.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet. 2018;392:1923–1994. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lee SW, Kim HC, Lee HS, Suh I. Thirty-year trends in mortality from cardiovascular diseases in Korea. Korean Circ J. 2015;45:202–209. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lee YR, Cho B, Jo MW, Ock M, Lee D, Lee D, et al. Measuring the economic burden of disease and injury in Korea, 2015. J Korean Med Sci. 2019;34:e80. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Roth GA, Nguyen G, Forouzanfar MH, Mokdad AH, Naghavi M, Murray CJ. Estimates of global and regional premature cardiovascular mortality in 2025. Circulation. 2015;132:1270–1282. - PubMed
    1. Arnett DK, Blumenthal RS, Albert MA, Buroker AB, Goldberger ZD, Hahn EJ, et al. 2019 ACC/AHA guideline on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease: executive summary: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2019;140:e563–e595. - PMC - PubMed