Abstract
The leading pathological causes of chronic heart failure (CHF) are hypertension and myocardial ischemia, which are intimately related to atherosclerosis. Dyslipidemia is one of the major risk factors for atherosclerosis. Therefore, we investigated the relevance of serum lipid profile to B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) in patients with CHF. CHF patients (n=81) and healthy control subjects (n=90) were investigated. BNP was measured by enzyme immunoassay. The lipoprotein profile was analyzed by anion-exchange chromatography. The correlations between lipid profile and BNP levels in patients with CHF were studied. HDL and VLDL cholesterol levels in CHF patients were lower and higher than those in healthy control subjects, respectively. Simple correlation analysis showed that HDL, LDL, and VLDL cholesterol levels significantly and inversely correlated with BNP levels in CHF patients. Moreover, multivariate stepwise regression analysis revealed that HDL cholesterol levels significantly and inversely correlated with BNP levels. These results suggest that decreasing HDL cholesterol levels may be a major therapeutic target for atherosclerosis progression in CHF patients with dyslipidemia, but this requires further investigation.
