School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations

Molecular Signatures of the Different Types of Hyperlipidemia According to the Fredrickson Classification

Document Type

Poster

Keywords

hyperlipidemia; lipoproteins; Fredrickson classification; molecular mechanisms; literature review

Publication Date

Spring 2017

Abstract

Hyperlipidemia, characterized by abnormally high levels of lipoproteins in the plasma, is one of the biggest epidemics facing our healthcare system today. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about one-third of American adults have some form of hyperlipidemia and that of those, only one-third are well-managed. With the growing obesity problem in America and the significant, detrimental health effects that hyperlipidemia can cause, developing new, more effective tools to help prevent, diagnose and treat hyperlipidemias is an urgent matter of public health.

Hyperlipidemias can be classified into three main categories: Primary (familial) caused by specific genetic abnormalities, secondary (acquired) abnormal plasma lipoprotein concentrations due to another underlying disorder, or idiopathic elevated lipoprotein. All three forms can almost double the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, and thus for decades scientists have sought to research, organize and understand how the chronic elevation of these lipoproteins in the blood circulation influence the human body. However, recently, researchers have begun to question the clinical usefulness of one of the most widely used hyperlipidemia classification models which first originated in 1967 and adopted by the World Health Organization, the Fredrickson familial hyperlipidemia classification. This classification is based on the pattern of lipoproteins in the plasma, which was resolved by physical analytic techniques, and includes five categories. Although Fredrickson’s model was instrumental in the original understanding of familial hyperlipidemias, this classification is not based on molecular causes of hyperlipidemias and therefore it has limitations in its clinical use, especially in the era of precision medicine. Thus, the objective of this project was to conduct a comprehensive literature review of the published biomedical literature for molecular defects in patients with different types of familial hyperlipidemias. Using this knowledge, we sought to better understand how molecular mechanisms govern elevated lipoproteins and then to subsequently integrate this information into the previously established Fredrickson classification. Our hope is that with this project, along with further research in the future, we are one day able to produce a more useful clinical tool which will provide a better explanation for hyperlipidemias and lead to better patient treatments.

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Open Access

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Poster to be presented at GW Annual Research Days 2017.

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Molecular Signatures of the Different Types of Hyperlipidemia According to the Fredrickson Classification

Hyperlipidemia, characterized by abnormally high levels of lipoproteins in the plasma, is one of the biggest epidemics facing our healthcare system today. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about one-third of American adults have some form of hyperlipidemia and that of those, only one-third are well-managed. With the growing obesity problem in America and the significant, detrimental health effects that hyperlipidemia can cause, developing new, more effective tools to help prevent, diagnose and treat hyperlipidemias is an urgent matter of public health.

Hyperlipidemias can be classified into three main categories: Primary (familial) caused by specific genetic abnormalities, secondary (acquired) abnormal plasma lipoprotein concentrations due to another underlying disorder, or idiopathic elevated lipoprotein. All three forms can almost double the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, and thus for decades scientists have sought to research, organize and understand how the chronic elevation of these lipoproteins in the blood circulation influence the human body. However, recently, researchers have begun to question the clinical usefulness of one of the most widely used hyperlipidemia classification models which first originated in 1967 and adopted by the World Health Organization, the Fredrickson familial hyperlipidemia classification. This classification is based on the pattern of lipoproteins in the plasma, which was resolved by physical analytic techniques, and includes five categories. Although Fredrickson’s model was instrumental in the original understanding of familial hyperlipidemias, this classification is not based on molecular causes of hyperlipidemias and therefore it has limitations in its clinical use, especially in the era of precision medicine. Thus, the objective of this project was to conduct a comprehensive literature review of the published biomedical literature for molecular defects in patients with different types of familial hyperlipidemias. Using this knowledge, we sought to better understand how molecular mechanisms govern elevated lipoproteins and then to subsequently integrate this information into the previously established Fredrickson classification. Our hope is that with this project, along with further research in the future, we are one day able to produce a more useful clinical tool which will provide a better explanation for hyperlipidemias and lead to better patient treatments.