Cardiovascular risk factors in patients surviving a myocardial infarction

We studied the risk factors of coronary disease in 52 patients (46 male and 6 female) survivors of myocardial infarction (MI). We found that a group of patients under 40 years old had predominant lipid alteration (100%) being hypercholesterolemia (CT greater than or equal to 260 mg/dl), the decrease of HDL-C levels (less than or equal to 35 mg/dl) and the increase of the atherogenic index (CT/HDL-C greater than or equal to 6) being the most frequent. At the same time, we observed an important association between several risk factors, such as tobacco consumption (58.5%), sedentary life (56.1%), lipid alterations (hypercholesterolemia: 46.3%, decrease of HDL-C: 41.4%, increase of atherogenic index: 60.9%) in the group of patients under 40 years old. These data show that the alterations of lipid metabolism are risk factors frequently observed in young patients with ischemic cardiac disease.