Cholesterol Trajectories and Their Associations with Cardiovascular Risk and All-Cause Mortality in An Aged Primary Prevention Cohort: A 10-year follow-up study.

Although high cholesterol is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), many studies reported that low cholesterol levels were associated with an increased risk of death in older adults. Researchers have argued that the results of these studies were likely to be skewed by using single-test cholesterol measures, due to that the cholesterol levels in older people are prone to variation due to age-related changes in metabolism, nutrition, and body mass. Repeated measurements of cholesterol (referred to as trajectory) that consider both the initial level and changes over time may be superior in risk predicting in older people. To test this hypothesis, this project will examine the ability of cholesterol trajectories in predicting risk of CVD and death among 16,000+ older adults from a clinical trial who had no CVD history initially. The follow-up time is 10 years. An expected outcome is that cholesterol trajectories will add incremental information to single measures in risk prediction to guide preventive strategies in older populations.