Association of Plasma Acylcarnitines and Amino Acids With Hypertension: A Nationwide Metabolomics Study Publisher Pubmed



Arjmand B¹ ; Dehghanbanadaki H² ; Yoosefi M³ ; Rezaei N³ ; Fateh SM³ ; Ghodssighassemabadi R⁴ ; Najjar N⁵ ; Hosseinkhani S⁶ ; Tayanloobeik A⁵ ; Adibi H⁷ ; Farzadfar F³ ; Larijani B⁷ ; Razi F⁵ Show Affiliations
Source: PLoS ONE Published:2023

Abstract

Background Identification of metabolomics profile in subjects with different blood pressure, including normal blood pressure, elevated blood pressure, stage 1 hypertension, and stage 2 hypertension, would be a promising strategy to understand the pathogenesis of hypertension. Thus, we conducted this study to investigate the association of plasma acylcarnitines and amino acids with hypertension in a large Iranian population. Methods 1200 randomly selected subjects from the national survey on the Surveillance of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases in Iran (STEPs 2016) were divided into four groups based on the ACC/AHA hypertension criteria: normal blood pressure (n = 293), elevated blood pressure (n = 135), stage 1 hypertension (n = 325), and stage 2 hypertension (n = 447). Plasma concentrations of 30 acylcarnitines and 20 amino acids were measured using a targeted approach with flow-injection tandem mass spectrometry. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to estimate the association between metabolites level and the risk of hypertension. Age, sex, BMI, total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, use of oral glucose-lowering drugs, statins, and antihypertensive drugs were adjusted in regression analysis. Results Of 50 metabolites, 34 were associated with an increased likelihood of stage 2 hypertension and 5 with a decreased likelihood of stage 2 hypertension. After full adjustment for potential confounders, 5 metabolites were still significant risk markers for stage 2 hypertension including C0 (OR = 0.75; 95%CI: 0.63, 0.90), C12 (OR = 1.18; 95%CI: 1.00, 1.40), C14:1 (OR = 1.20; 95%CI: 1.01, 1.42), C14:2 (OR = 1.19; 95%CI: 1.01, 1.41), and glycine (OR = 0.81; 95%CI: 0.68, 0.96). An index that included glycine and serine also showed significant predictive value for stage 2 hypertension after full adjustment (OR = 0.86; 95%CI: 0.75, 0.98). Conclusions Five metabolites were identified as potentially valuable predictors of stage 2 hypertension. © 2023 Arjmand et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.