Lipids, lipases, and obesity: does race matter?

For .20 years, researchers have reported that American blacks tend to have lower triglyceride and higher HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) levels compared with whites at a similar level of corpulence.1,2 Early studies focused on potential environmental explanations and concluded that differences in exercise, alcohol intake, leanness, and undernutrition did not readily account for the higher HDL-C levels.3 It was also noted that the propensity toward more favorable HDL-C and triglyceride levels was absent in highly educated blacks.4 More recent reports have shown that socioeconomic status was positively correlated with HDL-C in white men and women, a negative association was present in black men, and no association was evident in black women.5