Correlating the Cholesterol Levels to Glucose for Men and Women

Abstract

Objectives: This paper explores the correlation between multiple cholesterol levels of the lipid profiles of patients and their diabetes regulation abilities in men and women. Methodology: The methodology includes the following techniques: i) Pearson correlation ii) Spearman rank correlation and iii) setting thresholds for certainty of class assumption. Data: The methods were applied on data from 161 patients of which 110 male and 41 female, analyzing the variables about patients’ age, height, weight, BMI, lipid profile (total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides), glycated hemoglobin levels with respective glucose regulation and diabetes classes, history of heart, diabetes and other chronic illnesses, habitual behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity), and medications intake (calcium channel blockers, BETA blockers, anti-arrhythmics, AKE/ARB inhibitors, diuretics, statins anti-aggregation medication and anticoagulants). Conclusion: Analyzing the correlations between the lipid profile and glucose regulation in patients led to different results when the analysis was done separately on men and women. Thus, better predictions and insights can be made dependent on gender. The research found no strong stand-alone correlation when analyzing all data, but when the data was segmented in male and female records, a strong negative linear (r=-0.52, p=0.001) and non-linear (r=-0.55, p=0.001) correlation was found for the HDL-C and glucose levels in female patients. In men, statistically significant negative correlations with HbA1c were assessed for Chol (r=-0.27, p=0.009), LDL-C (r=-0.33, p=0.002) and HDL-C (r=-0.23, p=0.026).