Triglyceride and coronary heart disease mortality in a 24-year follow-up study in Xi'an, China

PURPOSE: To study whether serum triglyceride (TG) was associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality. METHODS: A cohort analytic study carried out in a machinery factory in Xi'an, China on 1696 subjects aged 35 years or above (1124 men and 572 women) examined in 1976 and followed up till 2000. RESULTS: At baseline, the mean serum total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) was 4.64 and 1.16 mmol/L in men, 4.62 and 1.10 mmol/L in women, respectively. Three hundred six (239 men, 67 women) had died within 37,781 person-years of follow-up, with 49 CHD deaths (36 male, 13 female). The relative risk (95% confidence interval) of CHD mortality per mmol/L increase in TG was 2.13 (1.46-3.17) after adjusting for age, marital status, occupation, education, systolic blood pressure and TC. Dose-response relationship between TG levels by tertiles and CHD risk was found. Stratified analyses showed TG was an independent predictor for CHD mortality in subjects with lower or higher TC. CONCLUSIONS: Chinese had lower levels of TC and TG than Western populations. This study provides new evidence that TG is an independent risk factor of CHD in subjects with lower or higher TC levels, and supports the lowering of cut-off value for elevated triglyceride.