Lassale, CamilleHamer, MarkHernáez, ÁlvaroGale, Catharine R.Batty, G. David2022-06-282022-06-282021Lassale C, Hamer M, Hernáez Á, Gale CR, Batty GD. Association of pre-pandemic high-density lipoprotein cholesterol with risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation and death: The UK Biobank cohort study. Prev Med Rep. 2021 Sep;23:101461. DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.1014612211-3355http://hdl.handle.net/10230/53612There is growing evidence of, and biological plausibility for, elevated levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) being related to lower rates of respiratory disease. We tested whether pre-pandemic HDL-C within the normal range is associated with subsequent COVID-19 hospitalisations and death. We analysed data on participants from UK Biobank, a prospective cohort study, baseline data for which were collected between 2006 and 2010. Follow-up for COVID-19 was via hospitalisation records (1845 events in 317,306 individuals) and a national mortality registry (458 deaths in 317,833 individuals). After controlling for a series of confounding factors which included health behaviours, inflammatory markers, and socio-economic status, higher levels of HDL-C were related to a lower risk of later hospitalisation. The effect was linear (p-value for trend 0.001), whereby a 0.2 mmol/L increase in HDL-C was associated with a 7% lower risk (odds ratio; 95% confidence interval: 0.93; 0.90, 0.96). Corresponding relationships for mortality were markedly weaker, such that statistical significance at conventional levels were not apparent for both the linear trend (p-value 0.25) and the odds ratio per 0.2 mmol/L increase (0.98; 0.91, 1.05). While our finding for HDL-C and hospitalisations for COVID-19 raise the possibility that favourable modification of this cholesterol fraction via lifestyle changes or drug intervention may impact upon the risk of the disease, it warrants testing in other studies.application/pdfeng© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101461COVID-19Cohort studyHDL-CUK Biobankinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess