Free-Living Humans Cross Cardiovascular Disease Risk Categories Due to Daily Rhythms in Cholesterol and Triglycerides

Cardiovascular disease risk assessment relies on single time-point measurement of risk factors. Although significant daily rhythmicity of some risk factors (e.g., blood pressure and blood glucose) suggests that carefully timed samples or biomarker timeseries could improve risk assessment, such rhythmicity inlipid risk factors is not well understood in free-living humans. As recent advances in at-home blood testing permit lipid data to be frequently and reliably self-collected during daily life, we hypothesized that total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol or triglycerides would show significant time-of-day variability under everyday conditions. To address this hypothesis, we worked with data collected by 20 self-trackers during personal projects. The dataset consisted of 1,319 samples of total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides, and comprised timeseries illustrating intra and inter-day variability. All individuals crossed at least one risk category in at least one output within a single day. 90% of fasted individuals (n = 12) crossed at least one risk category in one output during the morning hours alone (06:00 –08:00) across days. Both individuals and the aggregated group show significant, rhythmic change by time of day in total cholesterol and triglycerides, but not HDL-cholesterol. Two individuals collected additional data sufficient to illustrate ultradian (hourly) fluctuation in triglycerides, and t otal cholesterol fluctuation across the menstrual cycle. Short-t...
Source: Journal of Circadian Rhythms - Category: Biology Source Type: research