New research indicates that few high-risk women are achieving the optimal cholesterol levels set forth in recent guidelines by the American Heart Association (AHA).

"The reason for under-treating high cholesterol in women remains uncertain; however, the need to better apply the new guidelines and educate physicians and consumers is clear," lead author Dr. Lori Mosca, from Columbia University in New York, said in a statement.

The new findings, which appear in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, are based on an analysis of data from more than 1 million subjects entered in a managed care database. The study focused on 8,353 women considered to be high-risk because of a history of heart disease, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.

The AHA guidelines define optimal cholesterol levels as HDL (the "good" cholesterol) greater than 50 mg/dL; LDL (the "bad" cholesterol) less than 100 mg/dL; non-HDL cholesterol less than 130 mg/dL; and triglycerides less than 150 mg/dL.

Initially, just 7 percent of women had all of the optimal cholesterol and triglyceride levels. After 36 months, this percentage increased slightly to 12 percent, the investigators note.

As noted, only 32 percent of these high-risk women were treated with cholesterol-lowering therapy, the researchers point out.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the attainment of the recent lipid benchmarks in high-risk women established by the AHA Evidence-Based Guidelines for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women," the authors note.

The findings indicate that there "is a substantial opportunity to improve lipid management and reduce morbidity and mortality caused by cardiovascular disease among high-risk women."

SOURCE: Circulation 2005.