Methods The epidemiological study was carried out in a natural population 1000 (500 samples from the Li nationality and 500 samples from the Han nationality) individuals aged between 30 and 50 from Li nationality in Hainan area by cluster and random sampling. TC, TG, LDL-C, HDL-C were measured according to “suggestion on protocol of measuring serum lipdemia and standardisation”, and the data were analysed by SPSS 13.0.

Results The levels of TC, TG, HDL-C and LDL-C were equal between the Li nationality and the Han nationality, and the difference of the levels of HDL-C had statistical significance between the two groups (p<0.01). The levels of HDL-C in the Li nationality was significantly higher than that in the Han nationality among females (p<0.01), and the levels of TG in the Han nationality was significantly higher than that in the Li nationality among males (p<0.05). The levels of HDL-C in the Li nationality was significantly higher than that in the Han nationality in the group of age 30∼39 and the group of age 40∼49 (p<0.01).

Conclusion The difference of the levels of the blood lipid had statistical significance between the Li nationality and the Han nationality. The reason could be that the Li nationality who are living in the poorer area are under low living standard, the polymorphisms of blood lipid gene may be another cause of the difference.