Lipids and lipoproteins as predictors of coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer in the Honolulu Heart Program

Abstract

A group of 2,122 healthy men in the Honolulu Heart Program who participated in the Cooperative Lipoprotein Phenotyping Study, 1970 to 1972, were followed for 10 years by repeated examinations and surveillance of hospital discharge and mortality records in order to diagnose new cases of coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other deaths. Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were significantly associated with all clinical types of coronary heart disease in multivariate analyses, whereas high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was inversely associated with nonfatal myocardial infarction and total coronary heart disease, but not with fatal coronary heart disease nor angina. Triglyceride and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were associated with total coronary heart disease by univariate but not multivariate analysis. None of the other specific chronic diseases were significantly associated with any lipid or lipoprotein, although there were trends of inverse associations of all noncardiovascular disease with total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Thus, for total disease (coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other deaths), the optimal range for lowest disease incidence was about 200 to 220 mg/dl for total cholesterol and 120 to 140 mg/dl for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. A strong inverse pattern of total disease with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol indicated that the highest levels were the optimal levels.