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Background— Over the past decade, lipid measurements have been significantly improved and standardized. We evaluated the usefulness of multiple plasma lipid parameters in predicting coronary heart diseases (CHD) among women.

Methods and Results— Among 32 826 women from the Nurses’ Health Study who provided blood samples at baseline, 234 CHD events were documented during 8 years of follow-up. In a nested study, these cases were matched to controls (1:2) for age, smoking, fasting status, and month of blood draw. We estimated the relative risk (RR) for each lipid parameter, adjusted for C-reactive protein, homocysteine, body mass index, family history, hypertension, diabetes, postmenopausal hormone use, physical activity, alcohol intake, and blood draw parameters. The RRs associated with an increase of ≈1 SD (mg/dL) were as follows: HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) (RR=0.6 [0.5 to 0.8], SD …