ORIGINAL ARTICLE Association Between Long-Term Lipid Profiles and Disease Severity in a Large Cohort of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease Efstratios Koutroumpakis 1 • Claudia Ramos-Rivers 1 • Miguel Regueiro 1 • Jana G. Hashash 1 • Arthur Barrie 1 • Jason Swoger 1 • Leonard Baidoo 1 • Marc Schwartz 1 • Michael A. Dunn 1 • Ioannis E. Koutroubakis 1 • David G. Binion 1 Received: 10 July 2015 / Accepted: 12 October 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Abstract Background Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. Dyslipidemia is a well-established risk factor for car- diovascular disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term lipid profiles in a large cohort of IBD patients. Methods Data of patients from an IBD registry who had more than one measurement of total cholesterol and triglyceride levels during the follow-up period were ana- lyzed. The lipid profiles of IBD patients were compared to those of the general population according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2009–2012). Quartiles of cholesterol or triglyceride levels in relation to surrogate markers of disease severity were analyzed. Results Seven hundred and one IBD patients [54 % Crohn’s disease (CD), 46 % ulcerative colitis (UC)] were included. IBD patients had less frequent high total choles- terol and high LDL cholesterol (6 vs. 13 and 5 vs. 10 %) and more frequent low HDL and high triglycerides (24 vs. 17 and 33 vs. 25 %) compared to the general population (all p \ 0.001). Median total cholesterol levels were lower and median triglycerides higher in CD compared to UC (171 vs. 184; 123 vs. 100 mg/dL; both p \ 0.001). In the multiple regression analysis, lipid profile was independently associ- ated with hospitalizations (low cholesterol) and IBD surg- eries (low cholesterol and high triglycerides). Conclusions Low total cholesterol and high triglyceride levels are more frequent in IBD patients (in particular CD) compared to healthy controls and are independently asso- ciated with more severe disease. Keywords Cardiovascular risk Á Crohn’s disease Á Cholesterol Á Triglycerides Á Ulcerative colitis Introduction Dyslipidemia is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the western world [1, 2]. It is defined as an abnormal amount of lipids in the & David G. Binion biniond@upmc.edu; binion@pitt.edu Efstratios Koutroumpakis skoutroubakis@gmail.com Claudia Ramos-Rivers cmr95@pitt.edu Miguel Regueiro mdr7@pitt.edu Jana G. Hashash alhashashj@upmc.edu Arthur Barrie amb145@pitt.edu Jason Swoger swogerjm@upmc.edu Leonard Baidoo lkb19@pitt.edu Marc Schwartz mbs53@pitt.edu Michael A. Dunn dunnma@upmc.edu Ioannis E. Koutroubakis ikoutroub@med.uoc.gr 1 Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 200 Lothrop Street PUH Mezzanine Level C Wing, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA 123 Dig Dis Sci DOI 10.1007/s10620-015-3932-1