Abstract

OBJECTIVE--To examine the role of serum cholesterol in acute myocardial infarction in a population of patients with no history of coronary heart disease and to establish the nature of this association, the degree of risk, and the possible interaction between serum cholesterol and other major risk factors for acute myocardial infarction. DESIGN--Case-control study. SETTING--90 hospitals in northern, central, and southern Italy. PATIENTS--916 consecutive cases of newly diagnosed acute myocardial infarction and 1106 hospital controls admitted to hospital with acute conditions not related to known or suspected risk factors for coronary heart disease. DATA COLLECTION--Data were collected with a structured questionnaire and blood samples were taken by venepuncture as soon as possible after admission to hospital from cases and controls. Blood cholesterol concentrations were available for 614 cases and 792 controls. RESULTS--After adjustment by logistic regression for sex, age, education, geographical area, smoking status, body mass index, history of diabetes and hypertension, and family history of coronary heart disease the estimated relative risks of acute myocardial infarction for quintiles of serum cholesterol (from lowest to highest) were 2.3 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.6 to 3.4), 3.1 (95% CI 2.1 to 4.6), 4.1 (95% CI 2.8 to 6.0), and 5.2 (95% CI 3.5 to 7.7). The estimated relative risk across selected covariates increased from the lowest to the highest quintile of serum cholesterol particularly for men, patients under 55 years of age, and smokers. When the possible interaction of known risk factors with serum cholesterol was examined, smoking habits, diabetes, and hypertension had approximately multiplicative effects on relative risk. CONCLUSIONS--This study indicates that serum cholesterol was an independent risk factor for acute myocardial infarction. This association was linear, with no threshold level. Moreover, there was a multiplicative effect between cholesterol and other major risk factors on the relative risk of acute myocardial infarction.