Causal Association of Arterial Stiffness With the Risk of Chronic Kidney Disease
Xue Tian, Shuohua Chen, Xue Xia, Qin Xu, Yijun Zhang, Xiaoli Zhang, Penglian Wang, Shouling Wu, Anxin Wang
Abstract
Background: Previous studies on the direction of the association between arterial stiffness (AS) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) were inconsistent, leaving a knowledge gap in understanding the temporal sequence of the association. Objectives: This study sought to assess the temporal and longitudinal relationship between AS and CKD. Methods: The temporal relationship between AS measured by brachial ankle pulse wave velocity and CKD measured by estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was analyzed among 7,753 participants with repeated examinations in the Kailuan study using cross-lagged panel analysis. The longitudinal associations of AS status and vascular aging (VA) phenotype with incident CKD were analyzed among 10,535 participants. Results: < 0.0001 for the difference). During a median follow-up of 8.48 years, 953 cases of incident CKD (9.05%) occurred. After adjustment for confounders, borderline (HR: 1.17; 95% CI: 1.08-1.38) and elevated AS (HR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.12-1.72) was associated a higher risk of CKD, compared with normal AS. Consistently, supernormal VA (HR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.66-0.86) was associated with a decreased and early VA (HR: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.29-1.43) was associated with an increased risk of CKD, compared with normal VA. Conclusions: AS appeared to precede the decrease in eGFR. Additionally, increased AS and early VA were associated with an increased risk of incident CKD.