American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 24, 344-352, Copyright © 1971 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Serum lipids, skin-fold thickness, body bulk, and body weight of native Cape Verdeans, New England Cape Verdeans, and United States factory workers

¹ From the Department of Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, West Virginia, and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut

Serum cholesterol, triglycerides, triceps skin-fold thickness and two weight-height ratios were determined in 138 adult male native Cape Verde Islanders and in 435 fasting United States factory workers. All the measurements except skin-fold thickness were also carried out on 136 New England Cape Verdeans who had moved to this country some years previously or had been born here.

The nonfasting native Cape Verde Islanders had lower triglyceride and cholesterol concentrations and were leaner at all ages than the fasting factory workers. Two-thirds of the islanders were characterized by extreme leanness with a triceps skin-fold thickness less than 6 mm, thinness of a degree rare in the factory workers. Such extreme leanness was closely associated with low triglycerides in both islanders and United States factory workers. The triglycerides of both groups increased sharply with a slight increase in fatness. When triceps skin-fold thickness exceeded 8 mm there was no further relationship between skin fold and triglycerides, both high and low triglyceride values occurring in both factory workers and islanders. The higher triglycerides of the factory workers as a whole were related to the rarity of thinness of the degree common in the islanders.

The cholesterol for the factory workers was considerably higher than for the islanders, even when matched for age and thinness. The Cape Verdeans who had migrated to New England had cholesterol concentrations as high as those of the factory workers, ruling out genetic causes for the low cholesterol in the islanders. The rather high triglycerides of New England Cape Verdeans could not be evaluated because of their nonfasting state.

It is suggested that marked thinness in any population, even if selected for thinness, should be associated with low serum triglycerides, but not necessarily with low serum cholesterol. However, ethnic groups characterized by low cholesterol are likely to be markedly thin and thus to have low triglycerides.