3.4.3 Age
In studies which reported a mean age there was good comparison between case and control groups (Table 1). Ten of the studies looked at the association with age either by looking at different age cohorts or by performing multivariate regression analysis. Of these ten, four studies looking at cohorts found a significant association between DELC and CAD in all age brackets investigated(5, 6, 12, 18) whilst four(11, 13, 16, 17) using multivariate regression analysis found that DELC was independently and significantly associated with CAD when compared with age. Only two studies(14, 15) suggested that DELC was directly due to age and they provided no statistical analysis to support their view. Of the four studies which looked at different age cohorts, only one(6) provided enough detail to look at the diagnostic odds ratio for different 10 year age cohorts. There was no obvious pattern with the ratios although the DOR was greatest in the youngest cohort (<40yo) and smallest in the oldest cohort (>70yo).