Apolipoprotein C-III Bound to Apolipoprotein B-Containing Lipoproteins in Obese Girls (Technical Briefs‪)‬

Obesity in women is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes (1) and predicts increased mortality (2) and cardiovascular disease (3). In addition, a tendency for clustering of hypertension and dyslipidemia in obese adolescents has been observed (4). This association, known as syndrome X, may occur in obese, insulin-resistant children before pubertal onset (5). Because recent studies have shown that heparin-precipitated apolipoprotein (apo)C-III is strongly related to risk of atherosclerosis (6), which may be true even in normolipidemic individuals (7), we sought to assess early manifestations of the syndrome in obese girls during late adolescence with the aim of assessing apoC-III distribution between non-HDL and HDL. Both obesity and insulin resistance are associated with a characteristic atherogenic plasma lipid profile that includes increased triglycerides and small, dense LDL (8), and decreased HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) (9,10). Triglycerides are also more strongly related to obesity than LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) or apoB (11). We studied apo-CIII, which is known to correlate with triglycerides and triglyceride-rich lipoproteins and plays an important role in modulating their lipolytic degradation (12) and in preventing their uptake by the LDL receptor (13). These mechanisms may explain the finding that the lipoprotein distribution of apoC-III is a significant predictor of atherosclerosis progression (6,14).