Characteristics associated with apoprotein and lipoprotein lipid levels in middle-aged women.

Recent evidence indicates that measurement of apoproteins may enhance evaluation of coronary heart disease risk. The purpose of the present study was to identify factors associated with interindividual variation in apoproteins (apo) A-I, A-II, and B and lipoprotein lipid levels in 541 healthy premenopausal women, a random sample ages 42 to 50 taken from driver's license lists. The results of multivariate analyses that included alcohol intake, obesity, smoking, exercise, and age as predictor variables showed alcohol consumption to be strongly, positively related to apo A-I and A-II and smoking and obesity to have modest lowering effects on apo A-I. Concentration of the high density lipoprotein subfraction, HDL2c, however, was highly negatively related to body mass index, with alcohol intake and smoking each contributing about 5% to the variation. HDL3c had a similar relationship to obesity, alcohol, and smoking, but the magnitude of effect was much smaller than that for HDL2c. Thus, the concentration of cholesterol relative to protein found in HDL, particularly HDL2, was lower in overweight women and higher in women who reported alcohol intake. About 10% of variation in low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc) was explained jointly by smoking, obesity, and alcohol intake compared with 15% of variation in apo B associated primarily with obesity (8%) and, to a lesser extent, with age and smoking. Physical activity was not independently associated with any of the lipoprotein lipid or apoprotein measures. In sum, results show that obese women exhibited reduced HDLc per mole of protein and that alcohol intake was linked to increased HDL particle number.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)