Lipid and carbohydrate studies in coronary artery disease.

Abstract

Twenty-seven patients with arteriographically proved coronary artery disease, aged 27 to 59 years, were studied for abnormalities of lipid or carbohydrate metabolism. All patients were referred because of cardiac symptoms and none had any prior history of lipid or carbohydrate abnormality. Twenty-three patients were found to have some abnormality of carbohydrate or lipid metabolism, and four had none. Seventeen patients had an abnormal lipoprotein electrophoretic pattern, 12 had elevated serum cholesterol concentrations, and 15 elevated serum triglyceride values. Eighteen patients had an abnormality of carbohydrate metabolism, 11 as determined on standard glucose tolerance tests and seven on cortisone glucose tolerance tests. These abnormalities of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism were not related to age or ponderal-index ratio. This high incidence of carbohydrate and lipid abnormalities in association with coronary artery disease may be important in the pathogenesis of the vascular disease as well as management of these patients and their progeny.