Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Introduction
It is unclear if young adults with hyperlipidemia are also more likely to have non-lipid cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk-factors or higher long-term CVD risk. As such, we assessed associations between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and non-lipid CVD risk factors as well as 10- and 30-year risk of CVD in young adults.
Methods
We included a nationally representative sample of adults 20-<40 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (January 2015-March 2020). We described sociodemographic characteristics and CVD risk factors by LDL-C level. We used simple logistic regression to determine associations between LDL-C level and each CVD risk factor. We then calculated the median 10- and 30-year CVD risk by LDL-C category for each participant using the PREVENT risk estimating equations.
Results
Among 2,133 (weighted estimation: 90.3 million) young adults, 51.0%, 32.6%, 12.5%, and 3.9% had an LDL-C <100 mg/dL, 100-<130 mg/dL, 130-<160 mg/dL, and 160-<190 mg/dL, respectively. Compared to participants with an LDL-C <100mg/dL, those with an LDL-C 100-<130 mg/dL, 130-<160 mg/dL, and 160-189 mg/dL were more likely to have metabolic syndrome, an enlarged waist, hypertension, elevated glucose, diabetes mellitus, high triglycerides, and high hs-CRP (Table). The median 10-year risk of CVD was approximately 1% across all baseline LDL-C levels. Over a 30-year time horizon, the median risk of incident CVD exceeded 5% only in the 130-<160mg/dL and 160-189mg/dL LDL-C categories (6.0% and 7.6%, respectively). LDL-C and the interaction between LDL-C and CVD risk enhancing factors were independently associated with 30-year predicted risk of CVD (p=0.006 and p=0.005, respectively).
Discussion
Many young adults with an elevated LDL-C have concomitant high-risk CVD characteristics. The risk/benefit calculous for addressing this modifiable risk factor in these patients should be further explored.