Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Feb 26;27(1):7.
doi: 10.1186/s40885-021-00162-6.

Inference of a causal relation between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and hypertension using mendelian randomization analysis

Tae-Hwa Go #  1   2 , Kyeong Im Kwak #  3 , Ji-Yun Jang  1   2 , Minheui Yu  4 , Hye Sim Kim  5 , Jang Young Kim  6 , Sang Baek Koh  7   8 , Dae Ryong Kang  9   10
Affiliations

Inference of a causal relation between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and hypertension using mendelian randomization analysis

Tae-Hwa Go et al. Clin Hypertens. .

Abstract

Background: It is known in some studies that higher the LDL-C, the greater the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. However, studies of the causal effects between LDL-C and hypertension are limited by their observational study design, and genetic epidemiology studies of associations between LDL-C and hypertension are lacking, as are studies using data for Koreans. In this study, we confirmed the causal effect of LDL-C on hypertension using Korean chip data.

Method: The epidemiology and genotype data were collected from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study conducted by the Korea National Institute of Health and covered 20,701 subjects. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with LDL-C were selected (p-value < 5 × 10- 8) from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium database, and Mendelian randomization analysis (MRA) was performed with counted genetic risk scores and weighted genetic risk scores (WGRSs) for 24 single-nucleotide polymorphisms.

Result: The assumptions for MRA were statistically confirmed, and WGRSs showed a strong association with LDL-C. Interestingly, while the relationship between LDL-C and hypertension was not statistically significant in the observational study, MRA study demonstrated that the risk of hypertension increased as LDL-C increased in both men and women.

Conclusions: The results of this study confirmed that the relationship between LDL-C and hypertension is greatly influenced by genetic information.

Keywords: Genetic epidemiology; Hypertension; Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; Mendelian randomization.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart of the study. CAVAS, Cardiovascular Disease Association Study, SBP systolic blood pressure, DBP diastolic blood pressure, LDL-C low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Association between LDL-C and counted genetic risk scores in men and women. LDL-C low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Whelton PK. Epidemiology of hypertension. Lancet. 1994;344:101–106. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(94)91285-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lim SS, Vos T, Flaxman AD, Danaei G, Shibuya K, Adair-Rohani H, et al. A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2010. Lancet. 2012;380:2224–2260. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61766-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lozano R, Naghavi M, Foreman K, Lim S, Shibuya K, Aboyans V, et al. Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2010. Lancet. 2012;380:2095–2128. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61728-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Han S, Moon S, Kim YJ, Kim BJ. The introduction of disease genomic database for clinical practice. Public Health Wkly Rep. 2017;10:82–86.
    1. Lee KL. Study on community services for hypertension patients and families [Master's thesis] Yongin, Korea: Kangnam University; 2001.

LinkOut - more resources