Lipid and lipoprotein genetic variability: an important contribution from the French health examination centers

Abstract

Objective: To assess lipid and lipoprotein genetic variability in the French Population.

Methods: Many health examination centers are covering a great part of France (700,000 individuals are examined in 54 centers every year). Each citizen has the right to have a personal examination every 5 years. This unique system was modified in 1992, and we are presenting our 25-year experience focusing on the results we have more recently obtained in the lipid and lipoprotein field.

Results: First of all, the 600 items of information collected on every patient coming to our Center give us the data and facilitate the development of the theory of reference values. Having mastered the analytical variations, we studied the biological variations. Age, sex, overweight, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs are the main factors we should control for obtaining reference values. More recently, the genetic part in the production of reference values has become of greater importance, particularly for apolipoproteins. Apolipoprotein E is an important lipoprotein for which the two frequent mutations influence the level of circulating Apolipoprotein E. The risks linked to these alleles are also very different in cardiovascular disease and extremely important (for epsilon 4) in Alzheimer's Disease. Apolipoproteins B and A-IV also have interesting polymorphisms, but currently have no systematic applications in clinical chemistry. The familial recruitment we have in Nancy also permitted us to constitute a large tool "La Cohorte Stanislas."

Conclusion: The thousand families recruited will be followed for 10 years. It is an open tool for collaboration.