Dyslipidemia is Common after Spinal Cord Injury - Independent of Clinical Measures

Dyslipidemia is common after spinal cord injury-independent of clinical measures. Access to the published version may require subscription. Abstract Objective: To survey the incidence of clinical risk markers and its correlation with established clinical measurements for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a heterogeneous spinal cord injured (SCI) patient population. Subjects: 78 patients with SCI, at different injury and functional level. Methods: Anthropometric data, blood pressure, a blood lipid panel, blood glucose and a questionnaire were analyzed. Results: Eighty-one percent of all patients had dyslipidemia (DL) and a majority of the patients with abdominal measures below the recommended cutoff levels had DL. Self-reported physical activity above the cutoff level was reported by 32.1% of the patients. There were no differences in clinical measures, serum lipid values and blood glucose between physically active and not active patients. No differences were seen between men/women, tetraplegia/paraplegia and wheelchair de-pendent/not wheelchair dependent patients. Conclusion: DL is common and seems to be not treated or undertreated in the studied SCI patient group with different neu-rological lesion and functional levels. General anthropometric clinical measures do not seem to be valid for evaluating risk for CVD in this patient group.