Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 19 pp 8001—8012
Sex difference in the association between pathological albuminuria and subclinical atherosclerosis: insights from the I-Lan longitudinal aging study
- 1 Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
- 2 Cardiovascular Research Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 3 Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 4 Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- 5 Department of Critical Care Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- 6 Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- 7 Aging and Health Research Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 8 Institute of Public Health, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 9 Taipei Municipal Gan-Dau Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- 10 Taipei Heart Institute, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 11 Division of Cardiology, Heart Center, Cheng-Hsin General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
Received: April 11, 2022 Accepted: September 23, 2022 Published: October 11, 2022
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204331How to Cite
Copyright: © 2022 Lu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: Pathological albuminuria (PAU) (urinary albumin creatinine ratio [UACR] ≥30 mg/g) is an independent risk factor of cardiovascular disease. PAU is more prevalent in men than women. We aimed to compare the association of PAU and the early phase of subclinical atherosclerosis (SA) between sexes.
Methods: 1228 subjects aged 50–90 years were stratified by sex and UACR (normal or PAU). SA was defined as mean carotid intima-media thickness ≥75th percentile of the cohort. Demographics and SA prevalence were compared between groups. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to assess the relationship between PAU and SA.
Results: Both men and women with PAU had increased prevalence of hypertension, anti-hypertensive therapy, and metabolic syndrome than controls. Men with PAU were older and had greater waist circumference and total body fat percentage. Sex disparity was observed in associations between waist-to-height ratio, total body fat, and UACR. After adjusting for traditional risk factors, multivariate logistic regression disclosed that PAU was independently associated with SA in men (adjusted odds ratio 1.867, 95% CI 1.066–3.210) but not in women.
Conclusion: The relationship of PAU and SA differed between sexes. This result may highlight the need for sex-specific risk management strategies to prevent atherosclerosis.