UCLA researchers discover a new cause of high plasma triglycerides

People with hypertriglyceridemia often are told to change their diet and lose weight. But a high-fat diet isn ’t necessarily the cause for everyone with the condition.UCLA researchers have discovered a subset of people with hypertriglyceridemia whose bodies produce autoantibodies — immune-response molecules that attack their own proteins — causing high levels of triglycerides in the blood.Hypertriglyceridemia, which can increase risk of both cardiovascular disease and pancreatitis, is often caused by or exacerbated by uncontrolled diabetes or obesity. High plasma triglyceride levels can also be caused by mutations in a variety of genes that regulate triglyceride metabolism. However, despite decades of research and a growing understanding of triglyceride metabolism, most cases of hypertriglyceridemia are poorly understood.This newly discovered syndrome, dubbed the “GPIHBP1 autoantibody syndrome,” represents an important advance in understanding hypertriglyceridemia, said Dr. Stephen Young, UCLA cardiologist and molecular biologist, who led the study along with his colleagues Anne Beigneux and Loren Fong. All three are professors of medicine at the David G effen School of Medicine at UCLA. “It’s important to recognize this new syndrome because it is life threatening and potentially treatable,” Young said.Thestudy is published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.Triglycerides in the bloodstream are broken down by an enzyme called lipoprotein lipa...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news