Background and aims: Studies have linked several metabolites to the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among Western populations, but prospective studies among Asian populations on the metabolite-CHD association remain limited.
Methods and results: We evaluated the association of urinary metabolites with CHD risk among Chinese adults in a nested case-control study of 275 incident cases and 275 matched controls (127 pairs of men and 148 pairs of women). Fifty metabolites were measured by a predefined metabolomics panel and adjusted using urinary creatinine. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). After adjusting for traditional CHD risk factors, urinary tryptophan showed a positive association with incident CHD: OR (95% CI) for the highest vs. lowest quartiles was 2.02 (1.15-3.56) among all study participants (p-trend = 0.02). The tryptophan-CHD association was more evident among individuals with dyslipidemia than among those without the condition (OR [95% CI] for the highest vs. lowest quartiles = 3.90 [1.86-8.19] and 0.74 [0.26-2.06], respectively; p-interaction<0.01). Other metabolites did not show significant associations with CHD risk among all study participants. However, a positive association of methionine with CHD risk was observed only among women (OR [95% CI] for the highest vs. lowest quartiles = 2.77 [1.17-6.58]; p-interaction = 0.03), and an inverse association of inosine with CHD risk was observed only among men (OR [95% CI] for the highest vs. lowest quartiles = 0.29 [0.11-0.81]; p-interaction = 0.04).
Conclusion: Elevated urinary tryptophan may be related to CHD risk among Chinese adults, especially for those with dyslipidemia.
Keywords: Chinese population; Coronary heart disease; Metabolomics; Nested case–control study; Tryptophan metabolism.
Copyright © 2019 The Italian Society of Diabetology, the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.