CHINESE ADULTS ARE AS SUSCEPTIBLE AS CAUCASIANS TO CHOLESTEROL-RELATED ENDOTHELIAL DYSFUNCTION

K.S. Woo*, P. Chook, R.J. McCredie, W.K. Lam, B. Tomlinson, D.S. Celermajer.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, and The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales.

We have previously shown that Chinese adults are less susceptible to the adverse effects of ageing and smoke on arterial endothelial function.  However, the vascular effects of cholesterol in Chinese have not been studied.

We therefore examined arterial function in 16 normo-cholesterolaemia Chinese (age 34±7 years, cholesterol 4.7±0.8 mmol/l) and 16 hypercholesterolaemia (HCHOL) Chinese adults (age 35 ±5 years, cholesterol 8.3±1.0 mmol/l) and these were aged and sex-matched with 16 Caucasian controls (cholesterol 4.6±0.6 mmol/l) and 16 HCHOL Caucasians (cholesterol 8.7±1.9 mmol/l, p=NS compared to the Chinese).  No subjects had other risk factors for vascular disease.  Using high resolution ultrasound, endothelium-dependent (EDD) and independent dilatation (in response to sublingual nitroglycerin, GTN were measured in the brachial artery).

Compared to their racial controls, both groups of HCHOL subjects had impaired EDD (p=0.002) but similar GTN responses (p>=0.1).

                                                       CONTROL              HCHOL             p-VALUE

Therefore, for similar degree of HCHOL, Chinese and Caucasian subjects are both susceptible to arterial endothelial dysfunction.

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