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Abstract
Objectives. To describe the relationship of plasma apelin levels with blood pressure in a coastal Chinese population.
Methods. This cross-sectional study included a total of 1031 subjects from the coastal areas of China. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and linear trend test, Pearson's correlation analysis, as well as multivariate linear regression analysis were used to evaluate the association between plasma apelin levels and blood pressure.
Results. Plasma apelin levels dropped with increasing quartiles of systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) (all P < 0.001). SBP, DBP, and MABP values decreased as the apelin levels increased within the quartiles. After adjusting for age and gender, the significant differences in SBP, DBP, and MABP between the groups within the apelin quartiles remained (all P < 0.05). A significant negative correlation between SBP, DBP, as well as MABP and apelin levels was observed (all P < 0.01); even after adjusting for cardiovascular confounding factors, this negative correlation remained (all P < 0.001).
Conclusion. A negative correlation between plasma apelin levels and blood pressure was found in this 1000-population-based epidemiological study. Apelin may become a potential therapeutic target of anti-hypertensive treatment.
Acknowledgements
Pengli Zhu, Feng Huang, and Fan Lin contributed equally to the study.
Declaration of interest: Our study was supported by the Fujian Major Program of Basic Science Project Foundation entitled ‘Epidemiologic survey of hypertension and prehypertension intervention research in HaiDao County of Fujian Province’ (2010Y0013) and the Fujian Medical Innovation Project entitled ‘The association of plasma apelin levels and apelin polymorphism with hypertension and hypertensive vascular injury’ (2012-CX-1). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this article.