Plasma concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-2 and HDL-3 in myocardial infarction survivors and in control subjects.

The serum concentration of several lipids, including high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) and the HDL subfractions, HDL-2-C and HDL-3-C, were measured in 44 male and 26 female survivors of myocardial infarction and compared with those of a control group matched for age, sex, and body weight. Serum concentrations of total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) were significantly increased in patients as compared to control individuals. The total HDL-C concentration was lower in patients than in controls. By differential quantitation of HDL subfractions with a new precipitation method using polyethylene glycol, it was found that HDL-3-C was not significantly different between female patients and controls. The reduction of HDL-3-C in male patients was only of borderline significance. HDL-2-C in contrast was highly significantly reduced in both male and female patients. The greatest difference between patients and controls was found in the HDL-2/HDL-3-C ratio. It is therefore concluded that HDL-2-C quantitation is a valuable risk indicator for myocardial infarction yielding a better discrimination of patients from controls than total HDL-C quantitation.