Lipidemic effects of a mild-term treatment with calcium heparin in vasculopathic subjects

The Authors study the lipidemic effects of a "middle-term" treatment with heparin calcium in vasculopathic subjects undergoing the drug for antithrombotic purposes. The series consists of 35 subjects (21 m, 14 f, mean age 57 +/- 8) suffering from peripheral arteriopathy (24 cases) and instable angina (11 cases) of arteriosclerotic nature, and free from endocrinometabolic and hepatorenal diseases; all the subjects were normolipemic, except for 4 cases having hyperlipoproteinemia of type II B. After a week of standard diet and drug wash-out, each patient underwent antithrombotic treatment with calcium heparin (10.000 Units subcutaneously) for three weeks during the hospitalization; for each sample, the plasma levels of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), HDL-3-cholesterol (HDL-3-C) and HDL-2-cholesterol (HDL-2-C) were determined enzymatically (kits Boerhinger Mannheim). The Authors observe a significant (P less than 0.05) increase of TC and LDL-C after one and after two weeks of treatment with a return to the baseline after three weeks; levels of TG, HDL-C, HDL-3-C, HDL-2-C and the HDL-C/TC and HDL-2-C/HDL-C ratios showed an ascending profile until the third week without significant changes, compared to the baseline values. Subdividing the series arbitrarily into into two groups (A and B) respectively having rather low ("normolipemic") and high ("hyperlipemic") values of TC and TG respectively below (group A) and above (group B) 230 mg/dl (TC) and 165 mg/dl (TG).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)