European Heart Journal Advance Access originally published online on December 6, 2007
European Heart Journal 2008 29(1):104-112; doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehm517
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Alcohol consumption, TaqIB polymorphism of cholesteryl ester transfer protein, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and risk of coronary heart disease in men and women
1 Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
2 Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Sdr. Skovvej 15, DK-9100 Aalborg, Denmark
3 Department of Cardiology, Center for Cardiovascular Research, Aalborg Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark
4 Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA
5 Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
6 Department of Medicine, Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Received 12 February 2007; revised 12 September 2007; accepted 18 October 2007; online publish-ahead-of-print 6 December 2007.
* Corresponding author. Tel: +45 33383765, Fax: +45 33324240. Email: mkj{at}dce.au.dk
Aims: To investigate whether a common polymorphism in the cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) gene modifies the relationship of alcohol intake with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).
Methods and results: Parallel nested case-control studies among women [Nurses’ Health Study (NHS)] and men [Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS)] where 246 women and 259 men who developed incident CHD were matched to controls (1:2) on age and smoking. The TaqIB variant and alcohol consumption were associated with higher HDL-C, with the most pronounced effects of alcohol among B2 carriers. In the NHS we did not find an inverse association between alcohol and CHD in B2 non-carriers (P trend: 0.5), but did among B2 carriers (P trend <0.01). Among non-carriers the odds ratio (OR) for CHD among women with an intake of 5–14 g/day was 1.4 (95% CI: 0.6–3.7) compared with non-drinkers, whereas among B2 carriers the OR was 0.4 (0.2–0.8). Results in men were less suggestive of an interaction; corresponding OR’s were 1.9 (0.8–4.5) and 0.9 (0.5–1.6), for B2 non-carriers and carriers, respectively.
Conclusions: The association of alcohol with HDL-C levels was modified by CETP TaqIB2 carrier status, and there was also a suggestion of a gene–environment interaction on the risk of CHD.
Key Words: Alcohol • Gene–environment interaction • CHD • Cholesterol transport • Lipoproteins