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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2003;23:702.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Gemfibrozil Reduces Plasma C-Reactive Protein Levels in Abdominally Obese Men With the Atherogenic Dyslipidemia of the Metabolic Syndrome

Jean-Pierre Després; Isabelle Lemieux; Agnès Pascot; Natalie Alméras; Martine Dumont; André Nadeau; Jean Bergeron; Denis Prud’homme

Québec Heart Institute (J.-P.D., I.L., A.P., N.A.), Laval Hospital Research Center, Ste-Foy, Québec; Lipid Research Center (J.-P.D., J.B.), CHUL Research Center (CHUQ), Ste-Foy, Québec; Department of Food Sciences and Nutrition (J.-P.D., N.A.), Laval University, Ste-Foy, Québec; Centre national de formation en santé (M.D.), Ottawa, Ontario; Diabetes Research Unit (A.N.), CHUL Center (CHUQ), Ste-Foy, Québec; School of Human Kinetics (D.P.), University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

To the Editor:

Recent data from Veterans Affairs High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Intervention Trial (VA-HIT) have recently reported that pharmacological treatment with a fibrate (gemfibrozil) significantly reduced coronary heart disease (CHD) risk among men with a history of CHD who had low HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels at baseline evaluation.¹ Moreover, this study also demonstrated that changes in the lipoprotein-lipid profile only partially explained the beneficial effect of gemfibrozil on CHD risk, suggesting that other factors may be responsible for the reduction in the risk of CHD observed among patients undergoing fibrate therapy.²

On the other hand, the contribution of inflammation to the development of atherosclerosis and CHD is increasingly recognized, and recent studies have identified some inflammatory markers, such as plasma C-reactive protein (CRP) and cytokines, as CHD risk factors.^3,4 Recent data have suggested that statins and fibrates may favorably decrease markers of inflammation.^5–8

However, the effect of fibrates among abdominally obese men with the atherogenic dyslipidemia of the metabolic syndrome (a condition associated with markedly elevated inflammatory markers) has, to the best of our knowledge, never been reported. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the effect of a 6-month fibrate treatment on plasma CRP concentrations and cytokine levels such as interleukin (IL)-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)- in a sample of abdominally obese men with the atherogenic dyslipidemia of the metabolic syndrome.

Abdominally obese subjects (n=31 per treatment group) of the present study were asymptomatic volunteers who were between 25 and 55 years of age with . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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