Background and purpose: The objective of this study was to clarify the relationship between circulating oxidized LDL (oxLDL) and metabolic syndrome (MS) and the coronary heart disease (CHD) risk score.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of healthy volunteers who had no signs, symptoms or history of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease and took no medications. We studied 382 Japanese volunteers, 190 men and 192 women (median age 41 and 38 years, respectively). We used an ELISA kit and a monoclonal oxLDL antibody, FOH1a/DLH3, to measure circulating oxLDL.
Results: The odds ratio (OR) for elevated oxLDL in individuals with MS compared to those without MS, adjusted for age and sex, was 1.94 (range 1.00-3.78). In individuals with a predicted Framingham 10-year risk for CHD>5% (corresponding with the highest quartile), compared to those with a predicted 10-year risk<5%, the OR, adjusted for age, sex, smoking, and LDL cholesterol, was 2.51 (1.17-5.36). The age-, sex-, smoking- and LDL cholesterol-adjusted OR for a 10-year CHD risk score >5% was 1.03 (1.01-1.04) for LDL cholesterol and 11.7 (4.69-29.0) for smoking.
Conclusions: Elevated oxLDL is associated with the presence of MS and the CHD risk score in healthy people.