Obesity is a global, ever-increasing health problem. The interest in weight loss programs is obvious. The goal of weight reduction should be realistic, based on the patients' individual needs in order to improve their overall health. The aim of our work was to determine the distribution of cholesterol in the sub-fractions of lipoproteins in obese patients before reduction therapy.
Patients were recruited at nutrition clinic of Svet Zdravia (Košice) and undergoing medical examinations at the cardiological ambulance, 1st Department of Internal Medicine, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovakia. The study group consisted of 5 obese women aged 37 ± 7 years with an average BMI value of 33.4 ± 2.9. The results were compared to control group individuals (n=5), women aged 36 ± 13 years with an average BMI value of 20.0 ± 0.5. The analysis of the cholesterol in low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein sub-particles was performed by Lipoprint® Lipoprotein Subfractions Testing System. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS Statistics 22 (IBM).
There were no significant differences in glucose, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglyceride values between obese and non-obese individuals. However, detailed analysis of cholesterol in the lipoprotein sub-fractions proved statistically significant differences in large (1 to 3) and intermediate (3 to 7) high-density lipoprotein (HDL) sub-fractions. A significant correlation was detected between cholesterol in large HDL sub-fractions and body weight, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio; between very low-density lipoprotein fraction and weight; intermediate-density lipoprotein-cholesterol in all fractions (A, B, and C) and waist to hip ratio; large LDL 1 fraction and body shape index.
Weight loss therapy should be under the supervision of an experienced physician with detailed information about the patient's health. Taking into account the prevalence of atherogenic dyslipidemia in obesity, monitoring of cholesterol according to the latest knowledge of lipids and lipoproteins is recommended.
Key words: obesity, cholesterol, lipoprotein, weight reduction
This work was supported by grant VEGA 1/0910/16.
Number of probants?
Useful study and highly actual topic, congratulation to the results. However, the number of probants in your experimental groups is very low, even lower then is necessary for meaningful statitical evaluation, such as min. n = 6. Why is that? You have listed among the authors also the Dept. of Internal Medicine, so there should by no problem to acquire more of those patients convenient for the study. I am wondering how did this lipoprofile change after the weight reduction therapy (WRT). Where there stil some statistical differences betwem MS patients and healthy individuals? Where those MS patients under any medication in case of liprofile adjustments or were they only on that WRT? Thank you in advance for your response, ZB
Re: Number of probants?
Thank you very much for your review. As you mentioned, we cooperate with the 1st Department of IM of PJŠ University, this work is part of the project, where more than 10 probands are involved, but we were focusing just to those, they were obese. The worldwide incidence of obesity is around 40%, but fortunately not in Slovakia. People involved in the study with an effort to lose weight without surgery were mostly overweight (BMI 25-30). Our aim was to investigate the lipid profile in patients with BMI over 30, and this caused the greatest limitation of this work.
The number of probands included in the work is as follows: 5 in the study group and 5 in the control group, so a total of 10 participants, which is allowing us to make some statistics.
This work is carried out by a medical student to acquire practical and theoretical skills.
Participants undergoing weight reduction therapy involved in the study were not taking any medication known to affect lipid metabolism. Differences in lipid profile after the WRT were mostly in VLDL fractions, IDL fractions (decrease in both), and in non-atherogenic LDL fractions (increase).