NEW DELHI: High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol may not be useful in "uniformly predicting cardiovascular disease risk" for adults of all races and ethnic origins, as per recent research, despite people's efforts to maintain high levels of "good" cholesterol in their diets.
While a long-accepted association between low levels of HDL cholesterol and an increased risk of heart attacks or deaths in white adults was found in a study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the same was not true for black adults.
Furthermore, neither group's risk of cardiovascular disease was lowered by greater HDL cholesterol levels.
According to Nathalie Pamir, associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland's Knight Cardiovascular Institute, "the goal was to understand this long-established relationship that designates HDL as the favourable cholesterol, and if that's true for all ethnicities."
"Low HDL cholesterol levels are harmful regardless of race, as is well known. These were put to the test in our research, "Pamir said. Pamir and her colleagues examined data from 23,901 persons who took part in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study to come to this result.
For the current study, researchers were able to examine the relationship between future cardiovascular events and cholesterol levels in middle-aged Black and White adults without heart disease who lived across the nation. The study was the first to discover that higher cardiovascular disease risk was only predicted for white persons with lower HDL cholesterol levels.
It adds to research that suggests high HDL cholesterol levels are not always linked to a decline in cardiovascular events.
The need to review the risk-predicting algorithm for cardiovascular disease, Pamir said, is what he hopes his type of research will prove. It might prevent us from receiving future congratulations from our doctors for having greater HDL cholesterol levels. Researchers are investigating several hypotheses as they investigate HDL cholesterol's function in promoting heart health.
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