Impact of age and body size on inter-individual variation in measures of lipid metabolism: influence of gender and apolipoprotein E genotype.

This study was undertaken in 1695 adult subjects (870 women and 825 men) in order to further document the complexity of the influence of the apolipoprotein (apo) E genotypes on the mean levels and intragenotypic variability of seven measures of lipid metabolism. In addition, the statistical relationships between variability in these traits and variation in age, body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) were assessed. The contribution of variation in age and body size to inter-individual variation was found to be dependent on context, defined by gender and apo E genotype. Our findings are consistent with the reality that it is neither genes nor environments, but their interactions that are responsible for the variation in risk of cardiovascular disease.