The Eyelids Have It: Your Eyelids May Predict Risk of Heart Attack, Death

Think of me as a medical version of Lewis Black: When a medical story falls through the cracks, I’m there to catch it. Here’s a story from the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago that should have gotten some attention:

Cholesterol deposits on eyelids, which has the jaw-breaking name of “xanthelasmata,” (say that 3 times fast) predict your risk for heart attack, artery disease and early death.

The Danish team reporting the data say that because half of the people with the deposits have normal blood cholesterol levels, the eyelid lesions may be an important independent marker of underlying artery disease.

Here’s what the study showed:

Copenhagen researchers established the presence or absence of xanthelasmata at baseline in 12,939 people. Of these, 1,903 developed heart attacks, 3,761 developed ischemic heart disease and 8,663 died during up to 33 years of follow-up. Cumulative incidence of ischemic heart disease and heart attack as a function of age increased in those with xanthelasmata, and the proportion surviving decreased.

Xanthelasmata predicted 51% increased risk of heart attack and 40% increased risk of ischemic heart disease. Those with xanthelasmata also had a 17% increased risk of death after adjustments for well-known cardiovascular risk factors including blood cholesterol levels.

OK, here’s the hard science for those who enjoy it: The results suggest that other factors besides cholesterol levels — including capillary leakage, characteristics of macrophages or intercellular matrix components — “may predispose certain individuals to both xanthelasmata and to atherosclerotic disease and early death,” researchers said.

“In societies where other cardiovascular disease risk factors can’t be readily measured, presence of xanthelasmata may be a useful predictor of underlying atherosclerotic disease,” researchers said.

One editorial note: This flies against some earlier data. In 2008, investigators reported no link between xanthelasmata and cardiovascular disease risk. (Read the story here: http://bit.ly/9I1LVU) Granted, it was a much smaller study, so the work from the Danish investigators may be more reliable because of its sheer size.