Relationships of nutrient intake to lipids and lipoproteins in 1234 white children. The Lipid Research Clinics Prevalence Study.

Using the geographically and socioeconomically varied collaborative Lipid Research Clinics Prevalence Study data, this report focuses upon relationships between dietary intake and plasma lipids and lipoproteins in 1234 white children, 661 boys and 573 girls, aged 6-19 years who were sampled in a random recall (Visit 2) from large populations in six Lipid Research Clinics. Using multiple regression analysis, we found that in 6- to 12-year-old boys the dietary polyunsaturated-to-saturated fat ratio was inversely associated with plasma total and low density lipoprotein cholesterol and dietary cholesterol was positively associated with plasma high density lipoprotein cholesterol. In 13- to 19-year-old boys, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and the ratio of high density lipoprotein cholesterol to total cholesterol were inversely related to sucrose intake. In 6- to 12-year-old girls, plasma triglycerides were positively related to dietary sucrose. Using analysis of covariance in children having the lowest, middle, and top decile nutrient intakes, we found that higher carbohydrate intakes were associated with lower plasma total cholesterol in boys. The highest polyunsaturated fat intake (in 6- to 12-year-old girls) was associated with the lowest plasma cholesterol and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol. The highest cholesterol intake (in 6- to 12-year-old boys) was associated with the highest high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. In girls, the highest sucrose intakes were associated with the highest plasma triglyceride levels. We conclude that the weak, but statistically significant, associations that we observed were meaningful relative to etiologies of nutrient-lipoprotein interrelationships, and should be useful in forming new hypotheses for focused metabolic ward studies.