Background & Objectives: Every year around 1.5 million people in U.S get acute myocardial infarction and almost all causes of myocardial infarction are connected with atherosclerosis. The previous studies have shown that mortality rate due to coronary diseases decreases with elevation of serum albumin level. This study was conducted to investigate the association of serum albumin - protein level and myocardial infarction in hospitalized patients in Modares hospital in Tehran during 1997-1998.
Materials & Methods: The research was a case-control study in which 100 patients were surveyed in two control (50) and case (50) groups. Control cases were healthy (healthy exercise test) and treatment cases suffered from myocardial infarction (MI) (clinical symptoms, ECG and CkMB). The research cases were all over 40 years of age. Albumin level was measured through calorimetric method. To analyze the data χ 2 and Mantel- Hansel test were used.
Results: There was a clear and inverse association between serum albumin and risk of coronary disease. Protein level of under 7.5 g/dl was 10.3 times as high as control group. The results showed that albumin concentration of lower than 4.9 g/dl in patients with MI was as 6 times as control group. (P=0.0001). This association exists even with other risk factors.
Conclusion: Lower levels of albumin could imply permanent damage to artries and advanced athrosclerosis and thrombosis. However, the association between albumin and coronary disease needs more investigation