The Association of Education with Coronary Heart Disease Mortality in the USSR Lipid Research Clinics Study

Abstract

There is a strong inverse association between educational attainment and coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in men in the USSR Lipid Research Clinics (LRC) Study. Less educated men were characterized by higher mean blood pressure, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), cigarettes smoked and by lower mean low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and body mass index (BMI). With respect to nutritional variables, less educated men were characterized by higher mean energy per kg body weight and alcohol intake and by lower mean intake of fat, saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, cholesterol, sucrose, and other sugars. The Keys score closely predicted the differences in plasma cholesterol among the educational groups in the randomly selected sample. In men without CHD at entry, the age and clinic-adjusted relative risk for CHD mortality was 2.4 for the least educated compared with the most educated group; on adjusting for systolic blood pressure, HDL-C, LDL-C, BMI, alcohol intake and number of cigarettes, the relative risk was reduced to 1.9. These data indicate that only 22% of the twofold excess of CHD mortality associated with low education was statistically attributable to the major risk factors. The failure to explain more of the education-CHD mortality gradient in the USSR LRC cohort was similar to observations from cohort studies in Great Britain and the US. Other correlates of low education must be explored to explain the association.

Cognitive function, vascular risk factors and education. A cross‐sectional study based on a cohort of 70‐year‐old men

“…Concordantly, other studies have shown an inverse relation between education and cardiovascular risk factors [11][12][13][14][15][16], for example smoking [11][12][13][14] and high BMI [11,13]. An inverse association between plasma fibrinogen levels and education has also been reported previously [38].…”

“…A low educational level is another factor that, according to recent studies, is related to an increased risk of developing a dementia disorder [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Furthermore, there is a linkage between low education/low socio-economic status and increased vascular risk [11][12][13][14][15][16]. The aim of this study was to determine whether vascular risk factors associated with low levels of education are related to cognitive impairment amongst the elderly, independently of socio-economic factors.…”

Effect of SstI Polymorphism of the Apolipoprotein CIII Gene and Environmental Factors on Risks of Hypertriglyceridemia in Taiwan Aborigines

“…In the current study, besides ApoCIII SstI polymorphism, several environmental factors, such as socioeconomic background and diet, were also investigated. 49 who reported that less educated men had higher blood pressure, higher HDL-C and, furthermore, in multivariate-adjusted logistic modeling, the relative risk for coronary heart diseases of the least-educated men compared with the mosteducated men was 1.9. In the current study, subjects with BMI ≥25 were related to HTG risk (p<0.05), which is consistent with other reports.…”

The effect of education on adult mortality and disability: a global perspective

“…In general, the inverse relationship between education and mortality among adults is strong and, with the possible exception of the Czech Republic, the negative relationship has increased over time, when measured either by rate ratios or life expectancy (Mackenbach et al 1999;Leinsalu et al 2003;Kalediene and Petrauskiene 2000;Shkolnikov et al 2006;Dennis et al 1993;Shkolnikov et al 1998;Plavinski et al 2003).…”