The object of the study was to determine if atherogenic markers in the offspring reflected family history of coronary heart disease (CHD). Two hundred and four male subjects aged 9-18 years, mean age 13.3 +/- 1.7 (S.D.) years, and apparently healthy and normolipidemic, were selected for the study. Information on their family history of fatal or non-fatal heart attack or stroke was obtained on a questionnaire, and a scoring system was devised to grade the positivity of family history. The boys having the highest decile values of triglyceride, ratios of LDL/HDL-cholesterol, total/HDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein B/A-I, and cumulative skin-fold thickness, a marker of obesity, had higher family history scores and increased occurrence of myocardial infarction in their families than the boys with the lowest decile values of these variables. The reverse was true with variables such as HDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein A-I, high levels of which are known to be cardioprotective by virtue of controlling reverse cholesterol transport. The mean values of triglyceride and total/HDL-cholesterol ratio were significantly elevated in the boys with positive parental history of CHD as compared with those with negative parental history. Thus, although the boys were normolipidemic, their lipoprotein markers and an obesity marker exhibited a variation which in turn reflected family history of CHD.