rent from those of younger individuals. Considering that the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases is very high in in- dividuals with longevity, and that the proportion of these people will significantly increase in the next decades, future studies determining a pattern of cardiovascular risk for this age group will be paramount, both for preventing and hand- ling these risks. Therefore, studies on the polymorphism of genes associated with cardiovascular diseases should be carried out comparing populations of individuals with heart disease with populations of healthy individuals and also in- dividuals above the age of 80 years.

Acknowledgement

Our results allow us to conclude that, even though no individual with the E4E4 genotype existed in the population studied, suggesting a frequency-dependent effect, no as- sociation with risk factors and morbidity related to cardio- vascular diseases in heterozygous individuals was obser- ved. This happened even with LDL-c levels significantly hi-

We thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal (CAPES), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pes- quisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS), and the Municipal Authority of Veranópolis-RS for their support.

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