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Epidemiology

Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels may increase the detrimental effect of VDR variants on the risk of essential hypertension

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 74, pages 1091–1099 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives

The present cross-sectional study evaluated the association of vitamin D receptor (VDR) variants with serum 25(OH)D3 levels and their interaction on essential hypertension (EH) risk.

Subjects/methods

1539 patients were eligible in the study population. Two loci in VDR gene (rs2239179, rs2189480) were genotyped by TaqMan probe assays. Logistic regression, Kruskal–Wallis rank test and Chi-square test were used to determine the association among VDR polymorphisms, serum vitamin D metabolites, and the risk of EH. Interaction plots were performed to explain the interaction effects of circulating 25(OH)D3 levels and VDR variants on EH susceptibility.

Results

After potential confounding adjustment, we observed that the mutations of VDR (rs2239179/rs2189480) were associated with the increased risk of EH (P < 0.05). Moreover, plasma 25(OH)D3 levels were inversely associated with EH, However, we did not find the association between serum 25(OH)D3 and VDR variants. When comparing with wild-type homozygous and heterozygous genotype carriers with vitamin D sufficiency, hypovitaminosis D and insufficient participants carrying homozygous variant genotype of rs2239179 showed a higher risk of EH, increased by 113% (OR = 2.13, 95% CI: 1.20, 3.80); Notably, the detrimental effect of rs2239179 homozygous variant on EH became stronger in the case of serum 25(OH)D3 <30 ng/ml. However, we did not find the interaction effect between rs2189480 variants and serum 25(OH)D3 levels on the risk of EH.

Conclusions

Our results suggested that the mutations of VDR may accelerate the progression of EH etiology, especially when suffering hypovitaminnosis D and insufficiency.

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Fig. 1: Flow diagram shows the screening process.
Fig. 2: General linear regression coefficient estimates of VDR variants (95% CI, recessive model for rs2239179 (GG/AG + AA), and under dominant model for rs2189480 (CA + CC/AA) on the risk of essential hypertension as a function of serum 25(OH)D3 levels.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the supporters and applicants of this project.

Funding

XL and FS wrote the paper; YW and FY involved in genotyping; CG and XL contributed in dealing with data; FS, XL, and FY were responsible for collecting data; WL, YB, and CW reviewed this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, 100 Kexue Avenue, 450001, Henan, China

    Fang Shen, Yan Wang, Fei Yu, Dongdong Zhang, Wenjie Li & Xing Li

  2. Shaoxing Center of Diseases for Control and Prevention, Shaoxing, 312000, Zhejiang, China

    Changman Guo

  3. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, 100 Kexue Avenue, 450001, Henan, China

    Xue Liu & Chongjian Wang

  4. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Science, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, 100 Kexue Avenue, 450001, Henan, China

    Yue Ba

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This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grants number 81573151, 81872626, and 81573243), Science and Technology Foundation for Innovation Talent of Henan Province (No. 154200510010).

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Shen, F., Guo, C., Wang, Y. et al. Low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels may increase the detrimental effect of VDR variants on the risk of essential hypertension. Eur J Clin Nutr 74, 1091–1099 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-019-0543-5

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