The association of blood lipid parameters variability with ischemic stroke in hypertensive patients

Abstract Background and aims The relationship between lipid variability and stroke among patients with hypertension were inconclusive. We aimed to investigate the association of lipid variability with ischemic stroke in hypertensive patients. Methods and results This retrospective cohort study included 4995 individuals with hypertension between 2013 and 2015, and recorded their status of ischemic stroke until the end of 2018. The variability in total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were measured using the standard deviation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV), variability independent of the mean (VIM) and average absolute difference between successive values (ASV). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models with hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were performed. There were 110 cases of ischemic stroke during a median follow up of 4.2 years. The multivariable adjusted HRs and 95% CIs comparing the highest versus the lowest quartiles of SD of TC, LDL-C, HDL-C and TG were 4.429 (95% CI: 2.292, 8.560), 2.140 (95% CI: 1.264, 3.621), 1.368 (95% CI: 0.793, 2.359) and 1.421 (95% CI: 0.800, 2.525), respectively. High variability in TC and LDL-C were associated with a higher risk for ischemic stroke. Similarly, the results were consistent when calculating variability of TC and LDL-C using CV, ASV and VIM, and in various subgroup analyses. Conclusion Higher variability of TC and LDL-C associated with the risk of ischemic stroke among hypertensive patients. These findings suggest reducing variability of lipid parameters may decrease adverse outcomes.