Hyperlipidemia effects on clinical indexes of stroke in Japanese patients

Background and Purpose: Reports vary on the effect of hyperlipidemia on the clinical indexes of stroke. Methods: We extracted 16,850 stroke cases with non-medicated hyperlipidemia, diabetes or hypertension from the Japanese Stroke Databank, which contains 47,782 cases. The mean age was 67.4±14.3 years and 61% were male. Results: We analyzed the effects of hyperlipidemia on the clinical indexes of stroke. We used modified Rankin Scale, Japan Stroke Scale, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale and mortality on discharge as clinical indexes. All clinical indexes were significantly lower in patients with hyperlipidemia than in those without hyperlipidemia, after adjusting for sex and age. Conclusions: Japanese criteria of hyperlipidemia are very low: 140 mg/dl for LDL-C and 150 mg/dl for triglycerides. Therefore, many false positives may be included as having hyperlipidemia. Japan has the slimmest people in the OECD. However, mortality is greater in lean people than in obese people in Japan. Poor nutrition in the elderly may be the cause of increased risk of stroke.