Objective: Systemic inflammation has been implicated as an early marker for subclinical cardiovascular disease; however, findings have been inconsistent in the African-American population.
Methods: We examined the relation of C-reactive protein (CRP) to subclinical disease in African-American participants of the Jackson Heart Study first examination. Subclinical disease evaluated included aortic valve calcification (AVC), carotid intima-medial thickness (IMT) and peripheral arterial disease (PAD). We assessed the relation of CRP to subclinical disease, adjusting for age, BMI, sex, SBP and DBP, diabetes, total/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, smoking, antihypertensive therapy, lipid-lowering therapy and hormone replacement therapy.
Results: In the study population approximately, 5.1% of participants had AVC and 6.7% had PAD. In the age-adjusted and sex-adjusted model, CRP was significantly related to AVC (P = 0.02) and carotid IMT (P = 0.02). However, in the multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analysis, CRP was significantly related to AVC (P = 0.02) and to PAD (P = 0.04) but not to carotid IMT (P = 0.18).
Conclusion: We describe significant associations between CRP and AVC and PAD in a population-based cohort of African-Americans.