APOE and coronary artery disorder: Frikke-Schmidt et al. (2000) found the variations in APOE genotype predicted stepwise decreases with the presence of ε4 in HDL-C for women, but not for men. The data explained two things: firstly, in addition to the well-known increasing effect on non-HDL cholesterol, through a decreasing effect on HDL-C, the ε4 allele could further predispose to coronary heart disease; secondly, through both an increasing effect on HDL-C and a decreasing effect on non-HDL-C, the ε2 allele could exert a protective influence (Braeckman et al., 1996).