The impact of fat distribution on subclinical coronary atherosclerosis in middle-aged Chinese adults

Body Composition and COPD: A New Perspective

The proportion of obese or overweight patients in COPD patients is increasing. Although BMI, WC and other easy to measure indicators have been proven to be related to the risk of COPD, they cannot accurately reflect the distribution and changes of body composition, ignoring the body composition (such as fat distribution, muscle content, water content, etc.), the relationship between it and disease risk may be missed. By analyzing the correlation between different body composition indexes and COPD patients, we can provide new research ideas for the prognosis judgment or intervention of COPD disease.

Serum Dickkopf-3 Level Is Inversely Associated with Significant Coronary Stenosis in an Asymptomatic Chinese Cohort

Dickkopp-3 (DKK3) has been identified to play a protection role against atherosclerosis. However, little is known about the relationship between serum DKK3 levels and subclinical coronary atherosclerosis. We aimed to investigate the association of serum DKK3 with coronary stenosis in an asymptomatic Chinese population. A total of 550 Chinese adults aged 40-60 years and without symptoms or histories of cardiovascular diseases were randomly selected to undergo coronary computed tomography angiography. We defined ≥ 50% luminal narrowing as significant coronary stenosis and measured serum DKK3 levels by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Fifty-nine participants had significant coronary stenosis and 223 had < 50% coronary stenosis. Proportions of significant coronary stenosis were 13.7%, 11.4%, and 7.1% in DKK3 tertiles 1-3, respectively (P_trend = 0.0427). In the univariable multinomial logistic regression model, a decreasing DKK3 tertile was associated with significant coronary stenosis with borderline significance (OR: 1.40; 95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.98-1.99, P = 0.0642). In the multivariable regression model, participants in the lowest DKK3 tertile were associated with a 1.42-fold increased risk of significant coronary stenosis than those in the highest DKK3 tertile (OR: 2.42; 95% CI: 1.10-5.33; P = 0.0279) after adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors. In addition, associations between DKK3 and significant coronary stenosis were consistent among subgroups. However, no significant association was found between serum DKK3 levels and < 50% coronary stenosis. Therefore, we have added to the existing evidence that serum DKK3 is inversely associated with the risk of significant coronary stenosis in asymptomatic middle-aged Chinese.

Liver fat accumulation measured by high-speed T2-corrected multi-echo magnetic resonance spectroscopy can predict risk of cholelithiasis

BACKGROUND

Liver fat accumulation is associated with increased cholesterol synthesis and hypersecretion of biliary cholesterol, which may be related to the development of cholelithiasis.

AIM

To investigate whether liver fat accumulation measured by high-speed T2-corrected multi-echo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a risk factor for cholelithiasis.

METHODS

Forty patients with cholelithiasis and thirty-one healthy controls were retrospectively enrolled. The participants underwent high-speed T2-corrected multi-echo single-voxel MRS of the liver at a 3T MR scanner. The proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and R2 value were calculated. Serum parameters and waist circumference (WC) were recorded. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between PDFF, R2, and WC values. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the significant predictors of the risk of cholelithiasis. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the discriminative performance of significant predictors.

RESULTS

Patients with cholelithiasis had higher PDFF, R2, and WC values compared with healthy controls (5.8% ± 4.2% vs 3.3% ± 2.4%, P = 0.001; 50.4 ± 24.8/s vs 38.3 ± 8.8/s, P = 0.034; 85.3 ± 9.0 cm vs 81.0 ± 6.9 cm, P = 0.030; respectively). Liver iron concentration extrapolated from R2 values was significantly higher in the cholelithiasis group (2.21 ± 2.17 mg/g dry tissue vs 1.22 ± 0.49 mg/g dry tissue, P = 0.034) than in the healthy group. PDFF was positively correlated with WC (r = 0.502, P < 0.001) and R2 (r = 0.425, P < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that only PDFF was an independent risk factor for cholelithiasis (odds ratio = 1.79, 95%CI: 1.22-2.62, P = 0.003). ROC analysis showed that the area under the curve of PDFF was 0.723 for discriminating cholelithiasis from healthy controls, with a sensitivity of 55.0% and specificity of 83.9% when the cut-off value of PDFF was 4.4%.

CONCLUSION

PDFF derived from high speed T2-corrected multi-echo MRS can predict the risk of cholelithiasis.

Gamma-Glutamyltransferase and Risk of Acute Coronary Syndrome in Young Chinese Patients: A Case-Control Study

Background

Serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) is a biomarker of hepatic disease. Recent studies have shown that GGT may also associate with the risk of coronary artery disease. However, the underlying mechanisms of this association are still unclear.

Methods

This study included 216 young patients with acute coronary syndrome (aged ≤55years) and 227 age-matched controls with normal findings by coronary angiography or coronary computed tomography angiography. We use standard colorimetric techniques and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to measure the levels of GGT and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL), respectively. Traditional risk factors of coronary artery disease, including smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity/overweight, were evaluated according to the current guidelines.

Results

The levels of GGT were significantly correlated with body mass index and levels of triglyceride, fasting plasma glucose, aspartate aminotransferase, and ox-LDL (all P < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that GGT was significantly associated with the risk of acute coronary syndrome in young Chinese patients (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.09–2.15) after adjusting for traditional risk factors, including sex, age, quantity of smoking, hypertension, diabetes, body mass index, dyslipidemia, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. However, this association was significantly attenuated (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.91–1.58) after further adjusting for the levels of ox-LDL.

Conclusions

GGT was associated with the risk of ACS in relatively young patients. The link between GGT and the risk of ACS may be dependent on ox-LDL levels, indicating that the prooxidant action is an important pathway for GGT in the development of cardiovascular disease.