Cholesterol Study

We compared cholesterol levels of our Japanese American sample with three populations: the U.S. population, the native Japanese population, and Japanese urban workers in Japan. The U.S. results were from phase 1 of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) conducted during 1988-1991.The native Japanese population data were based on the National Cardiovascular Disease Examination Survey (NCDES) performed in 1990 on samples drawn randomly from the entire Japanese population. The samples of Japanese urban workers were based on a cardiovascular disease prevention screening conducted by the Epidemiological Arteriosclerosis Research Institute in major cities throughout Japan in 1989.

Age-specific, average total cholesterol (TC) levels of Seattle Japanese American men and women were the highest among the four populations, those in the U.S. population were second highest, and those in the native Japanese populations were lowest (Charts 1 and 2). This implies that total cholesterol levels are greatly influenced by environmental factors (lifestyle and diet) and may be affected by genetic factors to a lesser degree, since Japanese Americans share the same genetic background with native Japanese.