## 1 Introduction  
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of death worldwide, linked to an estimated 17.9 million deaths annually, accounting for 32% of all deaths globally [1,2]. In particular, dyslipidemia is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease along with hypertension and smoking [3], and it is estimated that its increased occurrence is one of the reasons why cerebrovascular disease prevalence is decreasing, along with that of all cardiovascular diseases, while coronary artery disease prevalence is steadily increasing [3,4]. The criteria for dyslipidemia generally include a total blood cholesterol of 240 mg/dL or higher, LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol of 160 mg/dL or higher, neutral fat of 200 mg/dL or higher, and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol of less than 40 mg/dL, and if any one of these four criteria is met, a diagnosis of dyslipidemia is warranted [5]. According to the 2022 Korean Society of Lipid and Atherosclerosis, in Korea, dyslipidemia is a common disease that occurs in 40.2% of adults aged 20 years or older, and its prevalence increases with age. Regarding the prevalence rate by gender, approximately 47.4% of the men in all age groups exhibit dyslipidemia. The prevalence in women is 33% and, although, before menopause, the prevalence is lower than that in men, the prevalence increases with age to a rate similar to that in men after menopause [2]. In this way, dyslipidemia shows different characteristics according to gender and age. Regarding the distribution of specific lipid concentrations, the total cholesterol is higher in men than in women in their 30s and 40s, but this changes around the age of 50, and after the mid-50s, it is actually higher in women [2,4,6]. The hypercholesterolemia prevalence is the lowest in men in the 20-24 age group, at 1.5%, and is the highest in the 55-59 age group, at 16.3%. On the other hand, the hypercholesterolemia prevalence in women in the 20-24 age group is 1.9%, which is not much different from that of men, but it increases rapidly after the age of 50, reaching 31.7% in the 60-64 and 65-69 age groups, which is more than twice as high as that of men [4]. Neutral fat increases rapidly in men from the age of 10 to 40, maintains a high level in the 40-60 age group, and then gradually decreases after the age of 60. On the other hand, women's neutral fat levels remain very low until their 30s, then begin to increase after their mid-40s and reach their highest levels after 65. Therefore, men have significantly higher triglyceride concentrations than women in their 20s to 50s, but women have higher levels than men after reaching their 60s, showing inverse characteristics depending on age [2,6,7]. LDL cholesterol, which is highly related to cardiovascular disease, shows a similar distribution to that of the total cholesterol concentration. In men, it increases rapidly from the early 20s, maintains a high level in the 30s to 50s, and then gradually decreases. In women, it increases until age 60 and gradually decreases thereafter. When examining the details of dyslipidemia independent of age and gender, the prevalence of hyper-LDL cholesterolemia was 20.4%, the prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia was 15.5%, and the prevalence of low-HDL cholesterolemia was 16.7% [2]. Overseas, in the United States, women were found to have a higher hyper-LDL-cholesterolemia prevalence and lower hypertriglyceridemia than men. In China, women had a higher prevalence of both hyper-LDL cholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia than men [6,7], and dyslipidemia was more common in women than in men [6, 7,8]. The dyslipidemia prevalence varies greatly depending on the presence or absence of comorbidities [2, 4,6, 7, 8]. The dyslipidemia prevalence is 26% in people without diabetes, but is 87.1% in people with diabetes. The dyslipidemia prevalence is 27% in people without hypertension, but 72.1% in people with hypertension.