Background: Advanced age is associated with left ventricle (LV) remodeling and impaired cardiac function that may increase the risk of heart failure. Even so, studies regarding age-related cardiac remodeling in a large, asymptomatic Asian population remain limited.
Materials and methods: We studied 8,410 asymptomatic participants (49.7 ±11.7 y, 38.9% women) in a health evaluation cohort (2004-2012) at a tertiary center in Northern Taiwan. We analyzed age-related alterations for all echocardiography-derived cardiac structures/functions and the associations with circulating N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP). We also explored sex-related differences in these measures.
Results: In our cohort of 8,410 participants, advanced age was associated with greater LV wall thickness, larger LV total mass (+5.08 g/decade), and greater LV mass index (4.41 g/m2/decade), as well as increased serum NT-proBNP level (+18.89 pg/mL/decade). An accompanying reduction of stress-corrected midwall fractional shortening (-0.1%/decade) with aging was apparent in women after multi-variate adjustment (-0.09%/decade, p = 0.001). Furthermore, women demonstrated greater overall increase in LV wall thickness, LV mass index, and NT-proBNP compared to men (p for interaction: <0.001). All blood pressure components, including systolic, diastolic, and pulse pressures were independently associated with greater wall thickness and LV mass index after adjustment for confounders (all p <0.001). The associations between age and cardiac remodeling or mid-wall functions were further confirmed in a subset of study subjects with repeated follow up by GEE model.
Conclusions: Significant associations of unfavorable LV remodeling and advanced age in our asymptomatic Asian population were observed, along with sex differences. These data may help explain the incidence of some diverse gender-related cardiovascular diseases, especially heart failure.