Smoking, LDL-cholesterol, age, low income, and low alcohol consumption are significantly associated with the severity of carotid atherosclerosis in middle-aged men.
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These associations should not change practice; leaves open causal roles for income and alcohol in carotid atherosclerosis.
We assessed the severity of carotid atherosclerosis in 412 men from eastern Finland aged 42, 48, 54 or 60 years at examination with B-mode ultrasonography in 1987 in the Kuopi ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD). Thirty-seven per cent of participants had intimal-medial thickening, 10% had plaques and 2% had stenosis. Age (P less than 0.001), cigarette-years (P less than 0.001), serum LDL cholesterol (P = 0.005), low income (P = 0.020) and low alcohol consumption (P = 0.048) had significant partial associations with the severity of carotid atherosclerosis. A linear regression model including these variables and plasma fibrinogen (NS) and serum HDL-cholesterol (NS) accounted for 33% of the variation in atherosclerosis severity. Our data provide further evidence on the role of smoking and LDL-cholesterol in atherosclerosis.
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Salonen et al. (1989) studied this question.
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