title: Serum squalene in postmenopausal women without and with coronary artery disease.
abstract: Squalene, found in earlier studies in human atherosclerotic plaques, was measured in the serum of postmenopausal women with coronary artery disease (CAD) (n = 25) and randomly chosen age-matched healthy controls (n = 30). The squalene concentrations of the whole population ranged from 37.5 to 115.5 microg/dl, and were higher in serum of the CAD than healthy women (91.4+/-2.6 versus 65.2+/-2.6 microg/dl, P = 0.000), a finding observed also in relation to cholesterol (43.8+/-1.8 versus 32.9+/-1.1 10(2)x mmol/mol of cholesterol, P = 0.000). The squalene concentration was also increased in chylomicrons, VLDL and d>1.006 g/ml lipoproteins, and the proportions to cholesterol in VLDL and d>1.006 g/ml lipoproteins. The respective squalene and cholesterol concentrations were related to each other in serum, VLDL and d>1.006 g/ml lipoproteins (r = 0.52, 0.85 and 0.55, respectively), whereas the correlation with triglycerides was seen only in VLDL (r = 0.84) over the whole population. Besides enhanced intestinal secretion, it remains to be shown whether higher serum squalene in postmenopausal coronary women is due to increased cholesterol synthesis or a defect in squalene conversion to lanosterol.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Rajaratnam
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gylling
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Miettinen
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002784:Cholesterol / Q000097:blood; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008079:Lipoproteins, VLDL / Q000097:blood; D008875:Middle Aged; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000097:blood*; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013185:Squalene / Q000032:analysis / Q000097:blood*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D008079:Lipoproteins, VLDL; D013185:Squalene; D002784:Cholesterol