New research indicates that few high-risk women are achieving the optimal lipid levels set forth in recent guidelines by the American Heart Association (AHA).

"The reason for under-treating high cholesterol in women remains uncertain; however, the need to better apply the new guidelines and educate physicians and consumers is clear," lead author Dr. Lori Mosca, from Columbia University in New York, said in a statement.

The new findings, which appear in the February 1st issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, are based on an analysis of data from more than 1 million subjects entered in a managed care database. The study focused on 8353 women considered high-risk due to a history of heart disease, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.

The AHA guidelines define optimal lipid levels as HDL cholesterol > 50 mg/dL, LDL cholesterol < 100 mg/dL, non-HDL cholesterol < 130 mg/dL, and triglycerides < 150 mg/dL.

Initially, just 7% of women had all of the optimal lipid levels. After 36 months, this percentage increased slightly to 12%, the investigators note.

As noted, only 32% of these high-risk women were treated with lipid-lowering therapy, the researchers point out. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the attainment of the recent lipid benchmarks in high-risk women established by the AHA Evidence-Based Guidelines for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women," the authors note. The findings indicate that there "is a substantial opportunity to improve lipid management and reduce morbidity and mortality caused by cardiovascular disease among high-risk women."

Source: Diabetes In Control.com: Circulation Feb, 2005.