ALTERATIONS AND REFERENCE VALUES OF LIPID INDEXES IN PREGNANT WOMEN

Diareme M.,  Karkalousos P.,  Theodoropoulos G.,  Strouzas S.,  Lazanas N.

Introduction

It is well known that during pregnancy lipid parameters like Chol, Trig, HDL and LDL are increasing considerably. This increase is more evident during second and third trimester.  

Purpose

The study of the alterations of Chol, Trig, HDL and LDL and the relevant atheromatic indexes Chol/HDL and HDL/LDL during pregnancy and the calculation of their reference values separately for each trimester.  

Material - Method

We measured Chol, Trig, HDL and LDL in the serum of 332 pregnant and 102 non-pregnant women. Although the women belonged in many nationalities the majority of them were Greeks and Albanians. The distribution of women in the three pregnancy trimesters was: 150 – 100 – 82. The medical data from each woman concerned smoking, job, nationality, twin pregnancy, pregnancy mellitus and levels of cholesterol before pregnancy. For each trimester, we calculated the level and alteration of each lipid parameter, the statistical difference between pregnant and non-pregnant and their reference values considering the women’s medical records that helped us to exclude all women with damaging predisposition factors.

Results

Our results confirmed previous references about lipid parameters. During the first trimester we noticed no difference between pregnant and non pregnant women. During the second trimester parameters started to increase: Chol: 26%, Trig: 54%, HDL: 21%, LDL: 24%.  In the third trimester the increase was even higher: Chol: 64%, Trig: 230%, HDL: 42%, LDL: 61%.  The reference values were for 1^st trimester: Chol: 130 – 264, Trig: 40 – 158, HDL: 40 – 88, LDL: 64 – 171, 2^st trimester: Chol: 177 – 368, Trig: 67 - 341, HDL: 47 – 97, LDL: 88 – 244, 3^st trimester: Chol: 168 – 369, Trig: 85 - 372, HDL: 40 – 90, LDL: 83 – 259.

Conclusions

The results showed that lipid parameters increase rapidly after second trimester. Triglycerides have the larger increase and HDL the smaller. This dramatic change of lipid parameters during pregnancy makes the calculation and the monitoring of the relevant reference values very critical.

 Tελευταία ενημέρωση:  Τρίτη Σεπτεμβρίου 08, 2009