Yonsei University College of Medicine Professor Sanghak Lee’s team (cardiology, Lecturer Sunhwa Lee) published the research results in the international journal’Journal of the American Heart Association (IF 4.605)’,’Cholesterol efflux and collateral circulation in chronic total coronary occlusion: EFFECT-CIRC study (chronic). It was published in early March under the theme of’Cholesterol Outflow and Collateral Circulation in Coronary Artery Occlusion: EFFECT-CIRC Study)’.
Until now, HDL levels have been known as factors that determine future cardiovascular risk, such as myocardial infarction or heart attack. However, many years ago, foreign studies have reported that △HDL levels, △related genes △use of drugs that increase HDL levels are not significantly related to cardiovascular risk.
In a recent study, it is reported that the cardiovascular risk is lower if HDL’s ability to bleed out the cholesterol accumulated in blood vessel cells (cholesterol outflow ability) and the outflow of this spilled cholesterol out of the body (reverse cholesterol transport) than simple levels is active have.
The research team investigated how HDL function correlates with the degree of development of new blood vessels in patients with cardiovascular disease. The subjects of this study were 226 patients who visited Yonsei University Severance Hospital Cardiology, whose coronary artery was chronically completely blocked. .
The study compared the difference in HDL function by dividing into a group of patients with well-developed new blood vessels and a group of patients with no or poorly produced new blood vessels. In addition, statistically, even if other clinical characteristics were corrected, the relationship was maintained, and whether there were other factors affecting the formation of new blood vessels were also confirmed.
As a result of the study, the patients with good new angiogenesis had an HDL function level of cholesterol leakage of 22.0%, which was higher than that of the control group (20.2%) (p=0.009). In the analysis that corrected the confounding variable, the younger the age, the better the HDL function, the better the creation of new blood vessels. In the analysis using the standard deviation, it was confirmed that when the cholesterol outflow ability was 1-standard deviation high, the formation of new blood vessels was 51% better.
Prof. Sang-Hak Lee said, “The good new blood vessel condition in patients with active HDL function suggests that HDL can promote new blood vessel formation and consequently contribute to protecting the cardiovascular system.”
“In this study, it was confirmed that certain functions of HDL can affect the health condition through internal action, and it is particularly meaningful that it was proved in human samples for the first time beyond cell and animal studies.”