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High serum uric acid is a risk factor for arterial stiffness in a Chinese hypertensive population: a cohort study

Hypertension Research (2024)Cite this article

Abstract

The prospective cohort study was to explore the association between serum uric acid (SUA) and arterial stiffness in a Chinese hypertensive population. A total of 7444 participants with hypertension who completed two or more measurements of brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) and baseline SUA detection were followed-up in the Kailuan Study from 2010 to 2020. A restricted cubic spline curve was used to verify whether there was a linear association between baseline SUA and arterial stiffness. A Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to explore the association of between baseline SUA and the incidence of arterial stiffness. Our results showed that the restricted cubic spline curve revealed a linear relationship between baseline SUA and arterial stiffness in total participants (p < 0.001). After follow-up 4.6 ± 2.8 years, Kaplan–Meier survival curves indicated that the risk of arterial stiffness was increased in the high level of baseline SUA (Log-rank p = 0.0002). After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the HR (95% CI) for risk of stiffness was 1.33 (1.17–1.52, p < 0.001) in the highest SUA group. Hierarchical analysis showed that the HRs (95% CI) for risk of arterial stiffness were 1.45 (1.25–1.69), 1.38 (1.19–1.60), 1.41 (1.21–1.64), and 1.35 (1.15–1.58) in the highest SUA group of males, <65 years old, not taking antihypertensive drugs, and failure to achieve the control targets of blood pressure respectively (p < 0.001). These results reveal that high SUA is a risk factor for arterial stiffness in the Chinese hypertensive population.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff and participants of the Kailuan Study for their important contributions.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFC2004703), National Natural Science Foundation of China (82070335 and 82370250), Research Project of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (202240036), and Project of Songjiang District Science and Technology in Shanghai (21SJKJGG48).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Lina An, Yujing Wang, Lizhen Liu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geriatrics, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 100 Haining Road, Shanghai, 200080, China

    Lina An

  2. Department of Internal and Emergency Medicine, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 100 Haining Road, Shanghai, 200080, China

    Yujing Wang, Congliang Miao & Jiang Hong

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 100 Haining Road, Shanghai, 200080, China

    Lizhen Liu

  4. Department of Internal and Emergency Medicine, Shanghai General Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 100 Haining Road, Shanghai, 200080, China

    Lina Xu

  5. Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, 168 Changhai Road, Shanghai, China

    Guokun Wang

  6. Department of Neurology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 160 Pujian Road, Shanghai, 200127, China

    Desheng Zhu

  7. Department of Cardiology, Kailuan General Hospital, Tangshan, 063000, China

    Shouling Wu

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Contributions

LA: designing the project, statistical analysis, writing the original draft; LL and YW: statistical analysis, data cleansing; CM: statistical analysis; LX: data cleansing; GW: review and editing; DZ, SW and JH: resources, data curation, project administration, review and editing.

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Correspondence to Desheng Zhu, Shouling Wu or Jiang Hong.

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An, L., Wang, Y., Liu, L. et al. High serum uric acid is a risk factor for arterial stiffness in a Chinese hypertensive population: a cohort study. Hypertens Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41440-024-01591-0

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