TY - BOOK AU - Howard, Barbara V AU - Valdiviezo, Carolina TI - Higher Lipophilic Index Indicates Higher Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Postmenopausal Women SN - 0024-4201 PY - 2017/// KW - *Coronary Disease/ep [Epidemiology] KW - *Dietary Fats/ae [Adverse Effects] KW - *Fatty Acids/bl [Blood] KW - *Postmenopause/bl [Blood] KW - Aged KW - Case-Control Studies KW - Cell Membrane/me [Metabolism] KW - Cohort Studies KW - Coronary Disease/bl [Blood] KW - Coronary Disease/et [Etiology] KW - Female KW - Humans KW - Middle Aged KW - Nutrition Surveys KW - Proportional Hazards Models KW - Risk Factors KW - MedStar Health Research Institute KW - MedStar Heart & Vascular Institute KW - Journal Article N2 - Fatty acids (FAs) are essential components of cell membranes and play an integral role in membrane fluidity. The lipophilic index [LI, defined as the sum of the products between FA levels and melting points (degreeC), divided by the total amount of FA: [Formula: see text]] is thought to reflect membrane and lipoprotein fluidity and may be associated with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Therefore, we examined the associations of dietary and plasma phospholipid (PL) LI with CHD risk among postmenopausal women. We determined dietary LI for the cohort with completed baseline food frequency questionnaires and free of prevalent cardiovascular diseases in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) observational study (N = 85,563). We additionally determined plasma PL LI in a matched case-control study (N = 2428) nested within the WHI observational cohort study. Cox proportional hazard regression and multivariable conditional logistic regression were used to calculate HRs/ORs for CHD risk between quartiles of LI after adjusting for potential sources of confounding and selection bias. Higher dietary LI in the cohort study and plasma PL LI in the case-control study were significantly associated with increased risk of CHD: HR = 1.18 (95% CI 1.07-1.31, P for trend <0.01) and OR = 1.76 (95% CI 1.33-2.33, P for trend <0.01) comparing extreme quartiles and adjusting for potential confounders. These associations still persisted after adjusting for the polyunsaturated to saturated fat ratio. Our study indicated that higher LI based on either dietary or plasma measurements, representing higher FA lipophilicity, was associated with elevated risk of CHD among postmenopausal women UR - https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11745-017-4276-8 ER -