APOLIPOPROTEIN-B AND A-I VALUES IN 147,576 SWEDISH MALES AND FEMALES,STANDARDIZED ACCORDING TO THE WORLD-HEALTH-ORGANIZATION INTERNATIONAL-FEDERATION-OF-CLINICAL-CHEMISTRY FIRST INTERNATIONAL REFERENCE MATERIALS

Serum concentrations of apolipoprotein (apo) B and apo A-I were measur ed from 1985-1996 in a Swedish population sample of 83 112 males and 6 4 464 females, ages <20 to >80 years, using an automated immunoturbidi metric method calibrated against fresh pools of human serum and commer cial calibrators. All values were recalculated in 1997 after calibrati on against the WHO-IFCC First International Reference Materials. The r ecalculation factor was 1.059 for apo B, whereas for apo A-I, the corr ection was: y = 0.989x + 0.101 The total CVs for both apo B and A-I we re generally <7%. The mean value (+/- SD) for apo B was 1.31 +/- 0.35 g/L in all males and 1.22 +/- 0.36 g/L in all females. The mean apo A- I concentration was 1.36 +/- 0.22 g/L in males-10% lower than in femal es (1.51 +/- 0.24 g/L). The mean value of apo B increased up to 60 yea rs of age in males and up to 70 years of age in females. apo A-I conce ntrations changed only slightly with age in both males and females, ap o A-I concentrations among Swedes are nearly identical to those report ed recently by two American studies and those obtained in a Finnish po pulation sample. Mean apo B concentrations differ somewhat between the populations but mirror-as expected-differences in total cholesterol c oncentrations. The highest values were noted in Swedish subjects. The Swedish sample population is, to our knowledge, the largest describing the distribution of apo B and A-I in a general population of adult ma les and females of all ages determined with procedures standardized an d traceable to the WHO-IFCC First International Reference Materials.