Triglycerides and cardiovascular disease: meta-analysis of individual data on 600 000 participants in 60 studies

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Triglycerides are specific fats that are increased in the blood of people who smoke, eat fatty foods and have high blood pressure. Widely available tests that can measure blood triglycerides concentrations are frequently used to help predict heart attack risk. Although dozens of long-term studies of triglycerides and heart attack risk have been conducted over the past 50 years, it is still uncertain whether measurement of these blood fats is actually worthwhile or whether they are likely to be causative of heart attacks. Individual studies have tended to be too small, and previous reviews of such studies have been insufficiently detailed to give clear results. To help provide much more reliable evidence about the relevance of triglycerides to heart disease, we will conduct detailed combined analyses of the available studies of triglycerides and future heart attack risk in a total of about 600 000 individuals from about 60 long-term studies. Previously, this approach helped clarify the evidence about other predictors of heart attack (such as blood pressure) and it should also do so for triglycerides.