scholarly journals Impact of cardiovascular risk factors on carotid intima–media thickness: sex differences

2016 ◽  
pp. 721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Izabella Uchmanowicz ◽  
Maria Łoboz-Rudnicka ◽  
Joanna Jaroch ◽  
Zbigniew Bociąga ◽  
Barbara Rzyczkowska ◽  
...  
BMC Medicine ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Gong ◽  
Katie Harris ◽  
Sanne A. E. Peters ◽  
Mark Woodward

Abstract Background Sex differences in major cardiovascular risk factors for incident (fatal or non-fatal) all-cause dementia were assessed in the UK Biobank. The effects of these risk factors on all-cause dementia were explored by age and socioeconomic status (SES). Methods Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and women-to-men ratio of HRs (RHR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), smoking, diabetes, adiposity, stroke, SES and lipids with dementia. Poisson regression was used to estimate the sex-specific incidence rate of dementia for these risk factors. Results 502,226 individuals in midlife (54.4% women, mean age 56.5 years) with no prevalent dementia were included in the analyses. Over 11.8 years (median), 4068 participants (45.9% women) developed dementia. The crude incidence rates were 5.88 [95% CI 5.62–6.16] for women and 8.42 [8.07–8.78] for men, per 10,000 person-years. Sex was associated with the risk of dementia, where the risk was lower in women than men (HR = 0.83 [0.77–0.89]). Current smoking, diabetes, high adiposity, prior stroke and low SES were associated with a greater risk of dementia, similarly in women and men. The relationship between blood pressure (BP) and dementia was U-shaped in men but had a dose-response relationship in women: the HR for SBP per 20 mmHg was 1.08 [1.02–1.13] in women and 0.98 [0.93–1.03] in men. This sex difference was not affected by the use of antihypertensive medication at baseline. The sex difference in the effect of raised BP was consistent for dementia subtypes (vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease). Conclusions Several mid-life cardiovascular risk factors were associated with dementia similarly in women and men, but not raised BP. Future bespoke BP-lowering trials are necessary to understand its role in restricting cognitive decline and to clarify any sex difference.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Maria van Zutphen ◽  
Judith Johanna Maria Rijnhart ◽  
Didericke Rhebergen ◽  
Majon Muller ◽  
Martijn Huisman ◽  
...  

Background: Sex differences in cognitive functioning in old age are known to exist yet are still poorly understood. Objective: This study examines to what extent differences in cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease between men and women explain sex differences in cognitive functioning. Methods: Data from 2,724 older adults from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were used. Information processing speed and episodic memory, measured three times during six years of follow-up, served as outcomes. The mediating role of cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease was examined in single and multiple mediator models. Determinant-mediator effects were estimated using linear or logistic regression, and determinant-outcome and mediator-outcome effects were estimated using linear mixed models. Indirect effects were estimated using the product-of-coefficients estimator. Results: Women scored 1.58 points higher on information processing speed and 1.53 points higher on episodic memory. Several cardiovascular risk factors had small mediating effects. The sex difference in information processing speed was mediated by smoking, depressive symptoms, obesity, and systolic blood pressure. The sex difference in episodic memory was mediated by smoking, physical activity, and depressive symptoms. Effects of smoking, LDL cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus on information processing speed differed between men and women. Conclusion: Differences in cardiovascular risk factors between women and men partially explained why women had better cognitive functioning. A healthy cardiovascular lifestyle seems beneficial for cognition and sex-specific strategies may be important to preserve cognitive functioning at older age.


Author(s):  
Eliana Portilla-Fernández ◽  
Shih-Jen Hwang ◽  
Rory Wilson ◽  
Jane Maddock ◽  
W. David Hill ◽  
...  

AbstractCommon carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) is an index of subclinical atherosclerosis that is associated with ischemic stroke and coronary artery disease (CAD). We undertook a cross-sectional epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of measures of cIMT in 6400 individuals. Mendelian randomization analysis was applied to investigate the potential causal role of DNA methylation in the link between atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk factors and cIMT or clinical cardiovascular disease. The CpG site cg05575921 was associated with cIMT (beta = −0.0264, p value = 3.5 × 10–8) in the discovery panel and was replicated in replication panel (beta = −0.07, p value = 0.005). This CpG is located at chr5:81649347 in the intron 3 of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor gene (AHRR). Our results indicate that DNA methylation at cg05575921 might be in the pathway between smoking, cIMT and stroke. Moreover, in a region-based analysis, 34 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) were identified of which a DMR upstream of ALOX12 showed the strongest association with cIMT (p value = 1.4 × 10–13). In conclusion, our study suggests that DNA methylation may play a role in the link between cardiovascular risk factors, cIMT and clinical cardiovascular disease.


2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 1030-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milka Koupenova ◽  
Eric Mick ◽  
Ekaterina Mikhalev ◽  
Emelia J. Benjamin ◽  
Kahraman Tanriverdi ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
V. O. Omelchenko ◽  
E. A. Letyagina ◽  
M. A. Korolev ◽  
T. I. Pospelova

Introduction. Cardiovascular complications are more often observed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Available cardiovascular risk scales were developed for general population and provide in sufficiently adequate assessment of the cardiovascular event likelihood. Studying the risk factors in rheumatoid arthritis patients is necessary for timely diagnosis and prevention.Objective: To analyze the incidence of atherosclerotic lesions in the brachiocephalic arteries in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and associations of this pathology with cardiovascular risk factors.Material and Methods. Two hundred and twelve Caucasian patients with rheumatoid arthritis (age of 58.0 years [48.3; 65.0]; Disease Activity Score-28 of 4.96 [3.86; 5.85]) were included in our study. Patients had American College of Rheumatology-defined rheumatoid arthritis (1987 classification criteria). The ratio of women to men was 5.8 to 1. General clinical examination of patients, the identification of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, and the determination of disease activity were performed. The atherosclerotic progression was assessed by ultrasonography with carotid intima-media thickness measurement and atherosclerotic plaque detection. All patients gave written informed consent before enrollment into the study.Results. Atherosclerotic plaques were found in 59 patients (27.8%), predominantly in older individuals (66.0 [59.0; 73.0] versus 55.0 years [42.0; 61.0], p<0.001) and in men (51.6 versus 23.8% in women, p=0.001). Atherosclerotic plaques were detected in 46.3% of smokers versus 23.4% of non-smokers (p=0.003). Atherosclerotic plaques were more frequently detected in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (58.3 versus 26.0%, p=0.036), arterial hypertension (41.7 versus 5.0%, p<0.001), angina pectoris (73.1 versus 21.5%, p<0.001), past history of acute cerebrovascular event (83.3 versus 25.9%, p=0.008), and the presence of post-infarction cardiosclerosis (100.0 versus 26.6%, p=0.03). No atherosclerotic plaques were found in 48 non-climacteric women. Except for the level of rheumatoid factor, all parameters of rheumatoid arthritis activity did not demonstrate statistically significant differences between groups with and without atherosclerotic plaques. The intima-media thickness mainly correlated with age (rs=0.633, p<0.001) and was not associated with rheumatoid arthritis activity. After the use of age- and sex-specific ultrasound criteria, the proportion of patients with intima-media thickening increased from 34.9 to 58.0% (p<0.001). Prevalence rates of most cardiovascular risk factors were associated with age and gender.Conclusion. The present study identified the differences between the incidence rates of traditional risk factors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis compared with the corresponding values in world studies and generated comparable results with REMARKA study confirming a significance of studying this question in the context of the Russian population. The results, obtained in this study, improve understanding of the structure of risk factors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and may provide the basis for the algorithm of curation of patient with high cardiovascular risk.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document