About the Authors

Mary P. McGowan

mpfmcgowan@gmail.com

Affiliation Cardiometabolic Risk Reduction and Research Center of New England, Bedford, New Hampshire, United States of America

Jean-Claude Tardif

Affiliation Montreal Heart Institute, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Richard Ceska

Affiliation Centre for Preventive Cardiology, General Teaching Hospital and First Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Lesley J. Burgess

Affiliation Cardiology Unit, Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital, Parow, South Africa

Handrean Soran

Affiliation University Department of Medicine, Central Manchester Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom

Ioanna Gouni-Berthold

Affiliation Center of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Preventive Medicine, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

Gilbert Wagener

Affiliation Clinical Research, Genzyme Corporation, Almere Stad Area, The Netherlands

Scott Chasan-Taber

Affiliation Biostatistics, Genzyme Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

MPM has consulted for and participated in two Genzyme Advisory Board Meetings. She is currently an employee of Genzyme; however, this manuscript was completed prior to this employment. MPM was the lead investigator and developed the manuscript. She has served on the following speaker's bureaus: Glaxo Smith Kline and Merck-Schering Plough. JCT acknowledges grants from Genzyme to his institution. RC is an advisory board member for: Genzyme, KOWA, and MSD; and is a speaker for Abbott, ASTRA-ZENECA, MSD, Pfizer, and Sanofi. LJB reports no conflicts. HS received fees for lectures and consultancy work from Genzyme as well as research grants from MSD Sharp & Dohme and Pfizer. IGB received payments for lectures and speakers bureaus from MSD Sharp & Dohme and Genzyme. She has received travel expenses and meeting expenses from Otsuka and Novartis as well as a grant for research from Bayer Healthcare. GW and is an employee of Genzyme, a Sanofi Company. SCT is a past employee of Genzyme. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all PLOS One policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MPM GW. Performed the experiments: MPM JCT RC LJB HS IGB. Analyzed the data: MPM JCT RC LJB HS IGB GW SCT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MPM JCT RC LJB HS IGB SCT. Wrote the paper: MPM JCT RC LJB HS IGB.