doi:10.1155/2009/158425 Clinical Study Ten-Year Survival in 75-Year-Old Men and Women: Predictive Ability of Total Cholesterol, HDL-C, and LDL-C

Objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate prognostic impact of cholesterol and its subfractions among 75-year-old people from the general population. Methods and Results. The study comprised a random sample (222 women and 210 men) from the general population (participation rate 70%). During 10-year follow-up, 19 % of women and 35 % of men experienced a major cardiovascular event (MCVE). The all-cause mortality was 29 % for women and 47 % for men. After adjustment for cardiovascular risk factors, a low level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was significantly associated with MCVE (P =.006) and mortality (P =.011) in men but not in women. The prognostic sex disparity was nearly significant (P =.051 for MCVE and.067 for mortality). The associations of adjusted HDL-C to MCVE and mortality were unchanged after excluding individuals with prevalent stroke or MI. Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were not significantly related to prognosis in either sex. Main Conclusions. HDL-C was associated with dismal prognosis in men but not in women. Elderly men with HDL-C < 40 mg/dL deserve particular attention for cardiovascular prevention. Copyright © 2009 Göran Nilsson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1