Clinical investigationsApolipoprotein E ϵ4 allele is associated with left ventricular systolic dysfunction☆
Section snippets
Setting and study population
The Rotterdam Study is a population-based prospective cohort study of cardiovascular, locomotor, neurologic, and ophthalmologic diseases in elderly people.8 Participants were recruited from inhabitants of Ommoord, a suburb of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, who were ≥55 years. Of the 10,275 eligible subjects, 7983 gave informed consent (78%). Participants were visited at home for a standardized questionnaire and were subsequently examined at the research center, where echocardiography was
Results
General characteristics of the study population are presented in Table I. Participants with left ventricular systolic dysfunction were on average older, more often men, and had a higher mean carotid intima-media thickness than control subjects with healthy cardiac function. Aorta calcifications and a history of myocardial infarction, CABG, or PTCA were also more frequent in case participants than in control subjects, and the percentage of former smokers was higher in the participant group. The
Discussion
The results of this study indicate that the APOE ϵ4 allele is associated with left ventricular systolic dysfunction in an elderly population. Participants homozygous for the ϵ4 allele carried 3-fold increased odds of impaired systolic function, whereas the odds of persons with APOE ϵ3/ϵ4 was nonsignificantly increased by 50%. There was a significant allele-effect relationship. The elevated risk remained after adjustment for total and HDL cholesterol levels, atherosclerosis parameters, and
Acknowledgements
We thank Christine van Broeckhoven and Marc Cruts for their efforts in APOE typing.
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Apolipoprotein E gene polymorphism and the risk of left ventricular dysfunction among Egyptian β-thalassemia major
2013, GeneCitation Excerpt :Any gene involved in the pathogenic pathway represents a candidate modifier gene. The boundaries between monogenic and polygenic disorders might not always be as clear-cut as previously thought, since more genes and gene interactions have become known from the progress of the Human Genome Project (Bleumink et al., 2004). The finding of an increased frequency of Apo E4 allele in β-thalassemia homozygotes with LV failure provides additional evidence to the theory of oxygen free radicals contributing to the organ damage, due to the demonstrated antioxidant and iron binding activity of Apo E (Economou-Petersen et al., 1998).
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2009, Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine
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Supported by the Dutch Inspectorate for Health Care.