An index Predicting Coronary Heart Disease: LDL/HDL×5

Atherosclerotic changes in the coronary artery are exacerbated by the balance betweenLDL, which carries cholesterol into the arterial wall, and HDL, which carries it out from the wall. The molecular weight of LDL is about 2×106 and that of HDL is about 4×105, which is almost 1/5 of the molecular weight of LDL. For this reason, LDL/HDL×5 should be a good indicator of coronary heart disease. We evaluated this index in two subject groups. At first, we determined whether it could predict the incidence of effort angina in participants of a medical examination system. Most of the subjects were healthy and good candidates for primary prevention. LDL/HDL×5 was a more sensitive indcx predicdng effort angina than toal cholesterol, LDL or HDL.The concentrations of HDL were significantly lower in myocardial infarction patients at all ages in both sexes. The average serum concentration of HDL was 56.6±15.0mg/dl in the medical examination group and 38.9±122 mg/dl in the AMI group.We tested whether our new index, LDL/HDL×5, could predict the incidence of re-infarction in patients with myocardial infarction who were candidates for secondary prevention. LDL/HDL×5 was a more sensitive index predicting re-infarction than total cholesterol, LDL or HDL.