Correlation between blood lipid levels and chronic pancreatitis: a retrospective case-control study of 48 cases

The incidence of chronic pancreatitis (CP) is increasing, and dyslipidemia severely affects the health of middle-aged and elderly people. We investigated the association between blood lipid levels and CP. The serum lipid metabolic indices of 48 patients with CP (CP group) were summarized retrospectively. The physical examination results of 40 randomly selected healthy individuals were used as the normal control (NC) group. Statistical analyses of the blood lipid data were performed between the 2 groups using the case-control study method. High-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-c) levels decreased and fasting blood glucose (GLU) levels increased in the CP group compared with those in the NC group (P<0.01). Pearson correlation analysis results showed that serum amylase (AMY) was positively correlated with low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-c; r=0.414, P<0.05), and urine AMY (UAMY) was positively correlated with total cholesterol (TC; r=0.614, P<0.01) and LDL-c (r=0.678, P<0.01). A binary logistic regression analysis showed that GLU (odds ratio [OR], 5.052; P<0.01) and TC (OR, 1.074; P<0.01) may be risk factors for CP, whereas HDL-c may be a CP protective factor (OR, 0.833; P<0.01). The HDL-c levels decreased and GLU levels increased in the CP group compared with those in the NC group; AMY was positively correlated with LDL-c and UAMY was positively correlated with TC and LDL-c; GLU and TC may be risk factors for CP; and HDL-c may be a CP protective factor. This may be the first time that such results have been reported. These findings will contribute to primary prevention and control of CP progression.