Effects of Hypolipidemic Regimes on Serum Lipoproteins

There is a rapid development in the area of serum lipid lowering regimes. Diets, drugs and other measures are used more and more frequently on more and more patients by more and more physicians. This increased use makes it mandatory that we know in detail the effects and the side-effects of these various regimes. One important aspect on the effects of the so called serum lipid lowering regimes is the effects on the different serum lipoprotein (LP) classes. Although it is well known that the serum lipids are bound to proteins and thus exist as LP in blood and that there are at least 3 major different LP classes we have surprisingly little knowledge about the effect of lipid lowering regimes on the concentration and composition of the LP classes. In fact it is not correct terminology to use expressions such as “lipid lowering drugs”, “cholesterol lowering drugs” or “triglyceride lowering drugs”. The correct terminology would be LP lowering drugs because it is not the serum cholesterol that is reduced by e.g. nicotinic acid but the concentration of the whole β (and also pre- β) lipoprotein molecules in serum (Carlson, 1969).