Association of ApoEpolymorphisms with prevalent hypertension in 1406 older adults: the Bambu?? Health Aging Study (BHAS)

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) polymorphism influences lipid metabolism, but its association with arterial hypertension is controver-sial. The objective of this study was to examine the association between ApoEpolymorphism and prevalent hypertension in a large unselected population of older adults. Participants from the baseline of the Bambu?? Health Aging Study whose ApoE genes had been genotyped were selected for this study (N = 1406, aged 60-95 years). These subjects represented 80.7% of the total elderly residents in Bambu?? city, MG, Brazil. Hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure ???140 mmHg and/or a diastolic blood pressure ???90 mmHg, or the use of anti-hypertensive medication. The exposure variable was the ApoEgenotype as follows: ??3 carriers, ??3??3; ??2 carriers, ??2??2 or ??2??3, and ??4 carriers, ??3??4 or ??4??4. Potential confounding variables were age, gender, traditional cardiovascular risk factors, uric acid, and creatinine levels. The prevalence of hypertension was 61.3%. Compared with the ??3 homozygotes, neither the ??2 nor the ??4 carrier status was associated with hypertension (adjusted prevalence ratios = 0.94, 95%CI = 0.83-1.07 and 0.98, 0.89-1.07, respectively). On the other hand, the ??2 allele carriers had lower LDL cholesterol levels (P < 0.001) and the ??4 carriers had higher LDL cholesterol levels (P = 0.036). This study provides epidemiologic evidence that the ApoEgenotype is not associated with prevalent hypertension in old age