Cholesterol, lipoproteins and subclinical interstitial lung disease: the MESA study

• Published in: Thorax Vol. 72; no. 5; pp. 472 - 474
• Main Authors: Podolanczuk, Anna J, Raghu, Ganesh, Tsai, Michael Y, Kawut, Steven M, Peterson, Eric, Sonti, Rajiv, Rabinowitz, Daniel, Johnson, Craig, Barr, R Graham, Hinckley Stukovsky, Karen, Hoffman, Eric A, Carr, J Jeffrey, Ahmed, Firas S, Jacobs, David R, Watson, Karol, Shea, Steven J, Lederer, David J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01.05.2017
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Apolipoproteins; Asthma; Atherosclerosis; Biomarkers; Biomarkers - blood; Body mass index; Cholesterol; Cholesterol, HDL - blood; Coronary Artery Disease - blood; Coronary Artery Disease - diagnostic imaging; Coronary vessels; Cross-Sectional Studies; Cytokines; Diabetes; Educational attainment; Emphysema; Ethnicity; Female; Humans; Hypertension; Lipids; Lipoproteins - blood; Low density lipoprotein; Lung diseases; Lung Diseases, Interstitial - blood; Lung Diseases, Interstitial - diagnostic imaging; Male; Matrix Metalloproteinase 7 - blood; Medical imaging; Middle Aged; Mortality; Prospective Studies; Proteins; Pulmonary fibrosis; Pulmonary Surfactant-Associated Protein A - blood; Signal transduction; Smoking; Surfactants; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; Triglycerides; Veins & arteries; Clinical Epidemiology; Interstitial Fibrosis; Imaging/CT MRI etc; Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
• ISSN: 0040-6376; 1468-3296
• DOI: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2016-209568

We investigated associations of plasma lipoproteins with subclinical interstitial lung disease (ILD) by measuring high attenuation areas (HAA: lung voxels between −600 and −250 Hounsfield units) in 6700 adults and serum MMP-7 and SP-A in 1216 adults age 45–84 without clinical cardiovascular disease in Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. In cross-sectional analyses, each SD decrement in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was associated with a 2.12% HAA increment (95% CI 1.44% to 2.79%), a 3.53% MMP-7 increment (95% CI 0.93% to 6.07%) and a 6.37% SP-A increment (95% CI 1.35% to 11.13%), independent of demographics, smoking and inflammatory biomarkers. These findings support a novel hypothesis that HDL-C might influence subclinical lung injury and extracellular matrix remodelling.