Table 1. Sample characteristics.

Values are mean ± standard deviation of the pooled data of 15 populations from 8 cohort studies. The population-specific characteristics are given in Table S2.

Characteristic	Combined	Females	Males	Not on statin	On statin
Number of individuals	9,290	4,711	4,579	7,565	1,633
Males (%)	49.3	0	100	47.2	58.7
Smokers (%)	13.6	14.0	13.3	14.5	12.4
On statin (%)	17.7	14.4	21.0	0	100
Hypertension (%)	47.1	44.9	49.3	41.3	74.4
Type 2 diabetes (%)	7.0	6.1	7.9	4.0	20.7
Age (years)	61.0 ± 7.3	60.7 ± 7.4	61.4 ± 7.2	59.6 ± 7.5	67.9 ± 5.6
BMI (kg/m2)	27.3 ± 4.4	27.1 ± 4.7	27.5 ± 4.0	27.1 ± 4.4	28.2 ± 4.1
logWMH	5.35 ± 0.95	5.17 ± 0.93	5.35 ± 0.95	5.05 ± 0.91	6.78 ± 1.07
Total-TG (mmol/L) *	1.38 ± 0.65	1.37 ± 0.62	1.39 ± 0.65	1.36 ± 0.63	1.45 ± 0.69
Total-C (mmol/L) *	4.95 ± 1.00	5.10 ± 0.97	4.81 ± 0.97	5.18 ± 0.93	4.17 ± 0.89
LDL-C (mmol/L) **	2.39 ± 0.67	2.49 ± 0.67	2.31 ± 0.66	2.57 ± 0.64	1.74 ± 0.54
HDL-C (mmol/L) **	1.51 ± 0.36	1.58 ± 0.34	1.43 ± 0.31	1.54 ± 0.63	1.39 ± 0.33

^*Pooled data of 9 populations for which total-TG and total-C were available.

^**Pooled data of 10 populations for which LDL-C and HDL-C were available.

BMI indicates body mass index; HDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; LDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; and WMH, white matter hyperintensities.