Ideal Cardiovascular Health Metrics and Incident Hyperuricemia

Hyperuricemia has been shown to be associated with increased risks of gout and cardiovascular diseases. We prospectively investigated the association between the American Heart Association (AHA) ideal cardiovascular health metrics, including smoking, body mass index, dietary intake, physical activity, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose, and the risk of developing hyperuricemia.

We included 77,787 Chinese adults, ages ≥18 years (60,951 men and 16,836 women), without hyperuricemia at the baseline (2006) in this study. Information on the cardiovascular health metrics at baseline was collected. Incident hyperuricemia cases were identified by elevated serum uric acid concentrations, which were repeatedly assessed in 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012, respectively. Cox regression was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for incident hyperuricemia according to the baseline ideal cardiovascular health metrics.

We observed an inverse relation between the greater numbers of ideal cardiovascular health metrics at baseline and lower risks of developing hyperuricemia during 6 years of followup. After adjusting for age, sex, alcohol consumption, and other potential confounders, the HRs for incident hyperuricemia were 0.95, 0.84, 0.72, and 0.64 (95% CIs 0.58-0.70, P for trend < 0.0001) for participants who met 2, 3, 4, and 5-7 metrics, respectively, compared with those who met 0-1 cardiovascular health metrics.

Greater cardiovascular health metrics were associated with lower risk of hyperuricemia in this Chinese population, suggesting that the modifiable construct defined by the AHA could be of significance in reducing the risk of developing hyperuricemia-related diseases, such as gout.