Journal
JOURNAL OF LIPID RESEARCH
Volume 52, Issue 9, Pages 1755-1759Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1194/jlr.P013193
Keywords
atherosclerosis; drug therapy; oxidized lipids; statins
Categories
Funding
- Merck
- Sharp
- Dohme, The Netherlands
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Low concentrations of bilirubin are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Possibly, bilirubin exerts its effect through the protection of LDL from oxidation. Therefore, we examined whether low bilirubin might also be a risk marker for CVD in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and whether statins influence serum bilirubin levels. Patients with FH were recruited from 37 lipid clinics. After a washout period of 6 weeks, all patients were started on monotherapy with simvastatin 80 mg for a period of two years. A total of 514 patients were enrolled. Bilirubin at baseline was inversely associated with the presence of CVD, also after adjustment for age, gender, presence of hypertension, and HDL cholesterol levels. Moreover, bilirubin levels were significantly raised, by 7%, from 10.0 to 10.8 mu mol/L after treatment with simvastatin 80 mg. We hypothesize first that high bilirubin levels might protect patients with FH from CVD. Furthermore, bilirubin levels were significantly increased after treatment with simvastatin 80 mg, independent of changes in liver enzymes, which might confer additional protection against CVD. Whether this is also true for lower doses of simvastatin or for other statins remains to be investigated.-de Sauvage Nolting, P. R. W., D. M. Kusters, B. A. Hutten, and J. J. P. Kastelein. Serum bilirubin levels in familial hypercholesterolemia: a new risk marker for cardiovascular disease? J. Lipid Res. 2011. 52: 1755-1759.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available