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. 2015 Jul;28(7):877-83.
doi: 10.1093/ajh/hpu253. Epub 2014 Dec 31.

Association of Uric Acid With Vascular Stiffness in the Framingham Heart Study

Tapan Mehta  1 , Eugene Nuccio  2 , Kim McFann  2 , Magdalena Madero  3 , Mark J Sarnak  4 , Diana Jalal  2
Affiliations

Association of Uric Acid With Vascular Stiffness in the Framingham Heart Study

Tapan Mehta et al. Am J Hypertens. 2015 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Uric acid is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and arterial stiffness in patients with hypertension or stroke. It remains unknown if uric acid is associated with arterial stiffness in the general population.

Methods: We analyzed the association between serum uric acid levels and measures of arterial stiffness such as carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (CF PWV), carotid-radial pulse wave velocity (CR PWV) and augmentation index (AI) in 4,140 participants from the Generation 3 Framingham cohort using linear regression.

Results: Mean (SD) age was 40.0 (8.8) years and mean (SD) serum uric acid levels were 5.3 (1.5) mg/dl. Mean (SD) CF PWV was 7.0 (1.4) m/s. Individuals in the highest quartile of uric acid were more likely to be male, have a higher prevalence of hypertension, higher BMI, fasting glucose and insulin, and lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Multivariate adjusted means of CF PWV were 6.90, 6.94, 7.06, and 7.15 m/s for uric acid quartile 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. In unadjusted analysis each 1mg/dl increase in uric acid was associated with higher CF-PWV (β = 0.27; 95% CI = 0.25, 0.29; P < 0.0001). This was attenuated but remained significant after adjusting for age, sex, smoking, hypertension, BMI, fasting glucose, insulin, animal protein intake, and eGFR (β= 0.06; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.09; P < 0.0007). There was no association between serum uric acid levels and AI upon adjustment for cardiovascular risk factors.

Conclusions: Serum uric acid levels are significantly associated with CF PWV and CR PWV in a younger Caucasian population.

Keywords: blood pressure; hypertension; uric acid; vascular stiffness..

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Mean carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (CF PWV) according to serum uric acid quartiles. *P = 0.002 compared to serum uric acid > 6.3mg/dl; #P = 0.005 compared to serum uric acid > 6.3mg/dl. Adjusted for age, sex, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), smoking, hypertension, fasting glucose, insulin, and body mass index.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Linear regression analysis of serum uric acid levels with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (CF PWV). Uric acid is positively correlated with CF PWV in linear regression analysis, R 2 represents the Coefficient of determination.
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