Inter-relationships between arteriosclerotic risk factors: a meta-analysis

Abstract

This study was performed to clarify the overall inter-relationships between the arteriosclerotic risk factors, including smoking, alcoholic consumption, obesity, serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels, high density lipoprotein, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure using a meta analysis method. The subjects of this study were included in 24 primary studies reported in Korea since 1980, which concerned arteriosclerotic risk factors. The results show that smoking is significantly associated with total cholesterol (R = .04), triglyceride (R = .10) and HDL-cholesterol (R = -.06). Alcohol consumption is also significantly and positively associated with all three serum lipid parameters: cholesterol (R = .04), triglyceride (R = .08) and HDL-cholesterol (R = .10). The effect of smoking and alcohol consumption on cholesterol levels were found to be almost equal. However, smoking has a predominant effect on triglyceride, whereas, alcohol consumption exerts an influence primarily on the HDL-cholesterol level. Obesity was positively correlated with cholesterol (R = .25) and triglyceride (R = .21), however, it was negatively correlated with HDL-cholesterol (R = -.14). It appears that the serum lipid parameter, which shows strongest correlation with obesity, is the total cholesterol level. Obesity also showed a significant correlation with systolic (R = .19) and diastolic blood pressure (R = .13). Blood pressure was also positively correlated with cholesterol (R = .18) and triglyceride (R = .26), however, it correlated negatively with HDL-cholesterol (R = -.23). In conclusion, the overall inter-relationships between the arteriosclerotic risk factors; smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, serum lipid level and blood pressure were all found to be significant.

Leg Blood Pressure Measured in Orthostatic Posture Is Associated With Left Ventricular Mass in Normotensive Subjects

“…This finding indicated that metabolic parameters exerted a significant influence on the leg BP response to orthostatic posture and further strengthened the notion that BP levels may be related to metabolic variables. 21,22 Clinical and experimental data have previously shown that higher triglyceride levels were associated with an increased vasoconstrictor response, 23,24 which could contribute to explaining our findings. In addition, it is possible that insulin resistance also played a role in this regard because triglycerides are a marker of decreased insulin sensitivity.…”

Depressed Mood and Flow-Mediated Dilation

“…To put this overall effect size for depression and FMD ( r = 0.19) in perspective, another meta-analysis found combined effect sizes of r = 0.19 and r = 0.13 for the relationship of obesity to systolic BP and diastolic BP, respectively (51). …”

Synergistic effect of fatty liver and smoking on metabolicsyndrome

“…The effects of cigarette smoking inducing high plasma TGs and low HDL-C levels were shown in several studies [14,[16][17][18][19][20]23,24,29,30] . While these studies provided evidence that smoking increased plasma TG and decreased HDL-C levels, most of these studies did not control potential confounding factors.…”