Association of the Human Y Chromosome with Cholesterol Levels in the General Population

Abstract

Objective— Males are at higher risk of cardiovascular diseases than females. The aim of the study was to test whether the potential of the Y chromosome to affect cardiovascular risk could be attributed to its influence on lipids. Methods and Results— 1288 Polish men (1157 subjects from young healthy cohort and 131 individuals from middle-aged hypertensive population) were phenotyped for determinants of cardiovascular risk including BMI, blood pressures, lipids, and testosterone. Each subject was genotyped for the Hin dIII(+/−) polymorphism within the nonrecombining region of the Y chromosome. Men with the Hin dIII(−) variant exhibited significantly higher total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) levels than subjects with the Hin dIII(+) genotype in both populations. The differences between the genotypes were 0.15 mmol/L ( P =0.0107) and 0.45 mmol/L ( P =0.0377) in TC and 0.15 mmol/L ( P =0.0059) and 0.41 mmol/L ( P =0.0432) in LDL among young apparently healthy men and middle-aged hypertensive men, respectively. The Hin dIII(+) was associated with a significant increase in blood pressure of the middle-aged men. Testosterone serum concentrations correlated positively with HDL-cholesterol levels, and this association was independent of the Y chromosome. Conclusions— The results indicate that a locus/loci on the Y chromosome may influence LDL levels, independent of testosterone levels.