抄録
Background Since 2003 we have been organizing medical screenings for Japanese expatriates in the Netherlands in collaboration with a local hospital. There are considerable discrepancies between the reference values used in the laboratory of the hospital and those commonly used in Japan. This study was conducted to determine lipid levels in this expatriate population in relationship to the two sets of reference values.
Methods Test data from 1177 participants in our medical screenings were compared with the means calculated on the basis of the reference values used in the hospital laboratory and a Japanese laboratory. Additional analyses were performed to exclude interlaboratory and inter-season differences.
Results The means±2SD for total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides (TG) and LDL cholesterol in our study population were 5.0±0.9, 1.5±0.4 (in males) and 2.0±0.4 (in females), 1.1±0.7 and 2.9±0.8 mmol/l, respectively. Three cholesterol levels in our study population fall between the means found for the hospital laboratory and the Japanese laboratory, except HDL cholesterol in women which was the highest of the three means. The LDL cholesterol mean was not available for the hospital laboratory. The TG mean was lower for the study population than for both laboratories. All the differences were statistically significant.
Conclusion The results suggest that the observed discrepancies in lipid levels in Japanese expatriates in the Netherlands from the available reference values make them less useful. Customized reference values are strongly recommended to optimize health risk management in expatriate populations. (Ningen Dock 2011; 25: 15-20)
