Although seen as a potential heart disease therapy, raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels by inhibiting activity of a transfer protein may not be effective, a new study suggests.
Scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University and Boston University School of Medicine found an association between low plasma cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) activity and increased risk of heart disease in the Framingham Heart Study population.
CETP is a protein that shuttles cholesterol throughout the body, thus controlling the levels of HDL, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) in the blood. "Our findings differ from studies suggesting that inhibiting CETP activity would bring a cardiovascular benefit by raising HDL, the so-called good cholesterol credited with lowering the risk of heart disease," says senior author Jose Ordovas, PhD, director of the Nutritional Genomics Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA. "In a clinical trial testing that hypothesis, heart disease unexpectedly advanced in a surprising number of participants."
Based on those results, Ordovas and colleagues examined CETP activity in 1,978 Caucasian men and women with a mean age of 51 years and no history of heart disease. They analyzed 15 to 18 years of study visits looking for first cardiac events including heart failure, heart attack, angina, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.