The Association Between Serum Alanine Aminotransferase and Hypertension: A National Based Cross-sectional Analysis Among over 21 Million Chinese Adults

Overview

Journal BMC Cardiovasc Disord

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Cardiology & Vascular Diseases

Date 2021 Mar 20

PMID 33740888

Citations 12

Authors

Jiajing Jia

Ying Yang

Fangchao Liu

Minjin Zhang

Qin Xu

Tonglei Guo

Long Wang

Zuoqi Peng

Yuan He

Yuanyuan Wang

Ya Zhang

Hongguang Zhang

Haiping Shen

Yiping Zhang

Donghai Yan

Xu Ma

Puhong Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Inconsistent results were found in the association between serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and hypertension among population-based studies. This study evaluated the association between ALT and hypertension among Chinese reproductive-age population by utilizing registration data from National Free Pre-pregnancy Checkups Project in 2016-2017.

Methods: The 21,103,790 registered participants were eligible for analysis, including women who were 20-49 years old and men who were 20-59 years old with available data for ALT and blood pressure (BP). Logistic regression was conducted to estimate odds ratio (OR) for the association between ALT and hypertension as a binary outcome. Linear regression was used to examine the association between ALT and BP as a continuous outcome.

Results: In total, 4.21% of the participants were hypertensive, and 11.67% had elevated ALT (> 40 U/L). Hypertension prevalence was 3.63% and 8.56% among participants with normal and elevated ALT levels. A strong linear relationship was found between serum ALT levels and the odds of hypertension after adjustment for potential confounders. The multivariable-adjusted ORs for hypertension were 1, 1.22 (1.21, 1.22), 1.67 (1.65 1.68), 1.78 (1.76, 1.80), and 1.92 (1.90, 1.94) in participants with ALT levels of ≤ 20, 20.01-40, 40.01-60, 60.01-80, and > 80 U/L, respectively. Systolic and diastolic BPs rose by 1.83 and 1.20 mmHg on average, for each 20 U/L increase in ALT (P < 0.001). The association was consistent among subgroups and tended to be stronger among populations who are overweight (body mass index ≥ 24 kg/m) (χ = 52,228, P < 0.001), alcohol drinking (χ = 100,730, P < 0.001) and cigarette smoking (χ = 105,347, P < 0.001).

Conclusions: Our cross-sectional analysis suggested a linear association between serum ALT and hypertension or BP, which indicated that abnormal liver metabolism marked by elevated serum ALT could play a role in hypertension or elevated BP condition.

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