@article {824, title = {Physical activity, APOE genotype, and dementia risk: findings from the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study.}, journal = {Am J Epidemiol}, volume = {161}, year = {2005}, month = {2005 Apr 01}, pages = {639-51}, abstract = {

Physical activity may help preserve cognitive function and decrease dementia risk, but epidemiologic findings are inconsistent. The authors conducted a prospective study to determine the association between physical activity and risk of dementia, Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s disease, and vascular dementia. The US study population comprised 3,375 men and women aged 65 years or older, free of dementia at baseline, who participated in the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study in 1992-2000. Leisure-time energy expenditure and an activity index reflecting number of different physical activities were calculated. Analyses were based on Cox proportional hazards models. There were 480 incident cases of dementia over an average of 5.4 years of follow-up. After multivariate adjustment, participants in the highest quartile of physical energy expenditure had a relative risk of dementia of 0.85 (95\% confidence interval: 0.61, 1.19) compared with those in the lowest quartile, and participants engaging in >or=4 activities had a relative risk of dementia of 0.51 (95\% confidence interval: 0.33, 0.79) compared with those engaging in 0-1 activity. These associations were more marked in apolipoprotein E genotype (APOE) epsilon4 allele noncarriers but were absent in carriers. A similar pattern was observed for Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s disease and vascular dementia. Mechanisms to explain the observed relations deserve further study.

}, keywords = {Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Alzheimer Disease, Apolipoproteins E, Dementia, Dementia, Vascular, Female, Genotype, Humans, Male, Motor Activity, Proportional Hazards Models, Prospective Studies, Risk Factors, United States}, issn = {0002-9262}, doi = {10.1093/aje/kwi092}, author = {Podewils, Laura Jean and Guallar, Eliseo and Kuller, Lewis H and Fried, Linda P and Lopez, Oscar L and Carlson, Michelle and Lyketsos, Constantine G} } @article {7548, title = {Association of Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number With Cardiovascular Disease.}, journal = {JAMA Cardiol}, volume = {2}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Nov 01}, pages = {1247-1255}, abstract = {

Importance: Mitochondrial dysfunction is a core component of the aging process and may play a key role in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN), which represents the number of mitochondria per cell and number of mitochondrial genomes per mitochondrion, is an indirect biomarker of mitochondrial function.

Objective: To determine whether mtDNA-CN, measured in an easily accessible tissue (buffy coat/circulating leukocytes), can improve risk classification for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and help guide initiation of statin therapy for primary prevention of CVD.

Design, Setting, and Participants: Prospective, population-based cohort analysis including 21 870 participants (20 163 free from CVD at baseline) from 3 studies: Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC), and Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). The mean follow-up was 13.5 years. The study included 11 153 participants from ARIC, 4830 from CHS, and 5887 from MESA. Analysis of the data was conducted from March 10, 2014, to January 29, 2017.

Exposures: Mitochondrial DNA-CN measured from buffy coat/circulating leukocytes.

Main Outcomes and Measures: Incident CVD, which combines coronary heart disease, defined as the first incident myocardial infarction or death owing to coronary heart disease, and stroke, defined as the first nonfatal stroke or death owing to stroke.

Results: Of the 21 870 participants, the mean age was 62.4 years (ARIC, 57.9 years; MESA, 62.4 years; and CHS, 72.5 years), and 54.7\% of participants were women. The hazard ratios for incident coronary heart disease, stroke, and CVD associated with a 1-SD decrease in mtDNA-CN were 1.29 (95\% CI, 1.24-1.33), 1.11 (95\% CI, 1.06-1.16), and 1.23 (95\% CI, 1.19-1.26). The associations persisted after adjustment for traditional CVD risk factors. Addition of mtDNA-CN to the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Pooled Cohorts Equations for estimating 10-year hard atherosclerosis CVD risk was associated with improved risk classification (continuous net reclassification index, 0.194; 95\% CI, 0.130-0.258; P < .001). Mitochondrial DNA-CN further improved sensitivity and specificity for the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association recommendations on initiating statin therapy for primary prevention of ASCVD (net 221 individuals appropriately downclassified and net 15 individuals appropriately upclassified).

Conclusions and Relevance: Mitochondrial DNA-CN was independently associated with incident CVD in 3 large prospective studies and may have potential clinical utility in improving CVD risk classification.

}, issn = {2380-6591}, doi = {10.1001/jamacardio.2017.3683}, author = {Ashar, Foram N and Zhang, Yiyi and Longchamps, Ryan J and Lane, John and Moes, Anna and Grove, Megan L and Mychaleckyj, Josyf C and Taylor, Kent D and Coresh, Josef and Rotter, Jerome I and Boerwinkle, Eric and Pankratz, Nathan and Guallar, Eliseo and Arking, Dan E} } @article {8047, title = {Biomarkers of Dietary Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Incident Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality.}, journal = {Circulation}, volume = {139}, year = {2019}, month = {2019 May 21}, pages = {2422-2436}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Global dietary recommendations for and cardiovascular effects of linoleic acid, the major dietary omega-6 fatty acid, and its major metabolite, arachidonic acid, remain controversial. To address this uncertainty and inform international recommendations, we evaluated how in vivo circulating and tissue levels of linoleic acid (LA) and arachidonic acid (AA) relate to incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) across multiple international studies.

METHODS: We performed harmonized, de novo, individual-level analyses in a global consortium of 30 prospective observational studies from 13 countries. Multivariable-adjusted associations of circulating and adipose tissue LA and AA biomarkers with incident total CVD and subtypes (coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, cardiovascular mortality) were investigated according to a prespecified analytic plan. Levels of LA and AA, measured as the percentage of total fatty acids, were evaluated linearly according to their interquintile range (ie, the range between the midpoint of the first and fifth quintiles), and categorically by quintiles. Study-specific results were pooled using inverse-variance-weighted meta-analysis. Heterogeneity was explored by age, sex, race, diabetes mellitus, statin use, aspirin use, omega-3 levels, and fatty acid desaturase 1 genotype (when available).

RESULTS: In 30 prospective studies with medians of follow-up ranging 2.5 to 31.9 years, 15 198 incident cardiovascular events occurred among 68 659 participants. Higher levels of LA were significantly associated with lower risks of total CVD, cardiovascular mortality, and ischemic stroke, with hazard ratios per interquintile range of 0.93 (95\% CI, 0.88-0.99), 0.78 (0.70-0.85), and 0.88 (0.79-0.98), respectively, and nonsignificantly with lower coronary heart disease risk (0.94; 0.88-1.00). Relationships were similar for LA evaluated across quintiles. AA levels were not associated with higher risk of cardiovascular outcomes; in a comparison of extreme quintiles, higher levels were associated with lower risk of total CVD (0.92; 0.86-0.99). No consistent heterogeneity by population subgroups was identified in the observed relationships.

CONCLUSIONS: In pooled global analyses, higher in vivo circulating and tissue levels of LA and possibly AA were associated with lower risk of major cardiovascular events. These results support a favorable role for LA in CVD prevention.

}, issn = {1524-4539}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.038908}, author = {Marklund, Matti and Wu, Jason H Y and Imamura, Fumiaki and Del Gobbo, Liana C and Fretts, Amanda and de Goede, Janette and Shi, Peilin and Tintle, Nathan and Wennberg, Maria and Aslibekyan, Stella and Chen, Tzu-An and de Oliveira Otto, Marcia C and Hirakawa, Yoichiro and Eriksen, Helle H{\o}jmark and Kr{\"o}ger, Janine and Laguzzi, Federica and Lankinen, Maria and Murphy, Rachel A and Prem, Kiesha and Samieri, Cecilia and Virtanen, Jyrki and Wood, Alexis C and Wong, Kerry and Yang, Wei-Sin and Zhou, Xia and Baylin, Ana and Boer, Jolanda M A and Brouwer, Ingeborg A and Campos, Hannia and Chaves, Paulo H M and Chien, Kuo-Liong and de Faire, Ulf and Djouss{\'e}, Luc and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and El-Abbadi, Naglaa and Forouhi, Nita G and Michael Gaziano, J and Geleijnse, Johanna M and Gigante, Bruna and Giles, Graham and Guallar, Eliseo and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Harris, Tamara and Harris, William S and Helmer, Catherine and Hellenius, Mai-Lis and Hodge, Allison and Hu, Frank B and Jacques, Paul F and Jansson, Jan-H{\r a}kan and Kalsbeek, Anya and Khaw, Kay-Tee and Koh, Woon-Puay and Laakso, Markku and Leander, Karin and Lin, Hung-Ju and Lind, Lars and Luben, Robert and Luo, Juhua and McKnight, Barbara and Mursu, Jaakko and Ninomiya, Toshiharu and Overvad, Kim and Psaty, Bruce M and Rimm, Eric and Schulze, Matthias B and Siscovick, David and Skjelbo Nielsen, Michael and Smith, Albert V and Steffen, Brian T and Steffen, Lyn and Sun, Qi and Sundstr{\"o}m, Johan and Tsai, Michael Y and Tunstall-Pedoe, Hugh and Uusitupa, Matti I J and van Dam, Rob M and Veenstra, Jenna and Monique Verschuren, W M and Wareham, Nick and Willett, Walter and Woodward, Mark and Yuan, Jian-Min and Micha, Renata and Lemaitre, Rozenn N and Mozaffarian, Dariush and Riserus, Ulf} } @article {8480, title = {Mitochondrial DNA copy number can influence mortality and cardiovascular disease via methylation of nuclear DNA CpGs.}, journal = {Genome Med}, volume = {12}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 Sep 28}, pages = {84}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN) has been associated with a variety of aging-related diseases, including all-cause mortality. However, the mechanism by which mtDNA-CN influences disease is not currently understood. One such mechanism may be through regulation of nuclear gene expression via the modification of nuclear DNA (nDNA) methylation.

METHODS: To investigate this hypothesis, we assessed the relationship between mtDNA-CN and nDNA methylation in 2507 African American (AA) and European American (EA) participants from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. To validate our findings, we assayed an additional 2528 participants from the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) (N = 533) and Framingham Heart Study (FHS) (N = 1995). We further assessed the effect of experimental modification of mtDNA-CN through knockout of TFAM, a regulator of mtDNA replication, via CRISPR-Cas9.

RESULTS: Thirty-four independent CpGs were associated with mtDNA-CN at genome-wide significance (P < 5 {\texttimes} 10). Meta-analysis across all cohorts identified six mtDNA-CN-associated CpGs at genome-wide significance (P < 5 {\texttimes} 10). Additionally, over half of these CpGs were associated with phenotypes known to be associated with mtDNA-CN, including coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and mortality. Experimental modification of mtDNA-CN demonstrated that modulation of mtDNA-CN results in changes in nDNA methylation and gene expression of specific CpGs and nearby transcripts. Strikingly, the "neuroactive ligand receptor interaction" KEGG pathway was found to be highly overrepresented in the ARIC cohort (P = 5.24 {\texttimes} 10), as well as the TFAM knockout methylation (P =~4.41 {\texttimes} 10) and expression (P =~4.30 {\texttimes} 10) studies.

CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that changes in mtDNA-CN influence nDNA methylation at specific loci and result in differential expression of specific genes that may impact human health and disease via altered cell signaling.

}, issn = {1756-994X}, doi = {10.1186/s13073-020-00778-7}, author = {Castellani, Christina A and Longchamps, Ryan J and Sumpter, Jason A and Newcomb, Charles E and Lane, John A and Grove, Megan L and Bressler, Jan and Brody, Jennifer A and Floyd, James S and Bartz, Traci M and Taylor, Kent D and Wang, Penglong and Tin, Adrienne and Coresh, Josef and Pankow, James S and Fornage, Myriam and Guallar, Eliseo and O{\textquoteright}Rourke, Brian and Pankratz, Nathan and Liu, Chunyu and Levy, Daniel and Sotoodehnia, Nona and Boerwinkle, Eric and Arking, Dan E} }