Serum ¹H‐nuclear magnetic spectroscopy followed by principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis to demonstrate effects of statins on hyperlipidemic patients

Use of statins for prevention of coronary heart disease is based on the decrease of serum cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. To better investigate the changes in lipid profile after statin treatment, we propose here to use an analysis of serum by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy associated with a multivariate analysis of the main spectral components. Sera were obtained from 60 male patients treated for 6 weeks with simvastatin (30 patients) or atorvastatin (30 patients) for who LDL cholesterol decreased by over 45% in all selected patients. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectra were obtained and the region of methyl resonance from lipids was separated into six consecutive lines attributed to lipids which were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and clustering by hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) based on Euclidian distance coupled with the Ward's minimum variance method. PCA and HCA gave a map discriminating the 120 samples into five clusters, three clusters containing samples obtained at baseline and two others containing samples obtained after treatment. Both statins produced a decrease in lower-density lipoprotein components and an increase in higher density lipoprotein components. Patients with a coronary heart disease history could be discriminated after treatment by the increase in the component containing the highest proportion of HDL. Proton NMR spectroscopy of sera coupled with a PCA and an HCA was able to detect variations in the metabolism of lipids resulting from statin treatments.