Wang T, Jiang CQ, Xu L, Zhang WS, Zhu F, Jin YL, Thomas GN, Cheng KK, Lam TH. White blood cell count and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the Guangzhou biobank cohort study.
BMC Public Health 2018;
18:1232. [PMID:
30400967 PMCID:
PMC6219250 DOI:
10.1186/s12889-018-6073-6]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2018] [Accepted: 09/26/2018] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Several studies have shown positive associations between higher WBC count and deaths from all-causes, CHD, stroke and cancer among occidental populations or developed countries of Asia. No study on the association of WBC count with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Chinese populations was reported. We studied this using prospective data from a large Chinese cohort.
Methods
We used prospective data from the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study (GBCS), a total of 29,925 participants in present study. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results
The hazard ratios (HR) for all-cause, CHD, and respiratory disease mortality for the highest decile of WBC count (women > 8.2 × 109/L; men > 8.8 × 109/L) was 1.83 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.54, 2.17), 3.02 (95% CI 1.84, 4.98) and 2.52 (95% CI 1.49, 4.27), respectively, after adjusting for multiple potential confounders. The associations were similar when deaths during the first 2 years of follow-up were excluded. After further adjusting for pulmonary function, the highest decile of WBC count was associated with 90% higher risk of respiratory disease mortality (HR 1.90, 95% CI 1.08, 3.33). No evidence for an association between higher WBC count and cancer mortality was found. Sub-type analysis showed that only granulocyte count remained significantly predictive of all-cause, CHD, and respiratory disease mortality.
Conclusions
Elevated WBC, specifically granulocyte, count was associated with all-cause, CHD and respiratory mortality in southern Chinese. Further investigation is warranted to clarify whether decreasing inflammation would attenuate WBC count associated mortality.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-6073-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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