Investigations into the haemorheological significance of postprandial and fasting hypertriglyceridaemia

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Abstract
Two study designs were conceived to evaluate the rheological significance of hypertriglyceridaemia. We first investigated the course of serum‐ (SV) and plasma viscosity (PV) and erythrocyte aggregation in serum (SEA) and plasma (PEA) of healthy normoli‐pidaemic individuals over 4 h after a fatty rich meal, in native material and after removal of triglyceride rich lipoproteins by centrifugation. Secondly, blood from patients with untreated hypertriglyceridaemia was investigated under fasting conditions. PEA and SEA increased in parallel with postprandial triglycerides (+135 mg dl‐1), but the effect on PEA was more pronounced (+ 0.8 abs% increase; 2 h after the meal) as compared to SEA (+ 0.4 abs% increase). PV and SV increased in parallel to the same extent (+ 0.05 mPas). In the triglyceride poor infranatant no significant changes occurred. In fasting plasma PEA and PV were significantly lower (1.1abs% and PV 0.04 mPas respectively) in infranatant than in native plasma, while only small differences in triglyceride (mostly VLDL) were observed. This phenomenon was barely detectable in serum samples.We conclude that triglyceride rich lipoproteins have a profound influence on haemorheological parameters, and that fibrinogen in particular, potentiates the effect of large fasting VLDL on plasma viscosity and erythrocyte aggregation.