Sex inequalities in cardiovascular risk prediction.

AIMS: Evaluate sex differences in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction, including use of i) optimal sex-specific risk predictors and ii) sex-specific risk thresholds. METHODS AND RESULTS: Prospective cohort study using UK Biobank, including 121,724 and 182,632 healthy men and women, respectively, aged 38-73 years at baseline. There were 11,899 (men) and 9,110 (women) incident CVD cases (hospitalization or mortality) with median 12.1 years follow-up. We used recalibrated Pooled Cohort Equations (PCE, 7.5% 10-year risk threshold as per US guidelines), QRISK3 (10% 10-year risk threshold as per UK guidelines) and Cox survival models using sparse sex-specific variable sets (via LASSO stability selection) to predict CVD risk separately in men and women. LASSO stability selection included 12 variables in common between men and women, with three additional variables selected for men and one for women. C-statistics were slightly lower for PCE than QRISK3 and models using stably-selected variables, but were similar between men and women: 0.67 [0.66-0.68], 0.70 [0.69-0.71], and 0.71 [0.70-0.72] in men and 0.69 [0.68-0.70], 0.72 [0.71-0.73], and 0.72 [0.71-0.73] in women for PCE, QRISK3 and models using stably-selected variables, respectively. At current clinically implemented risk thresholds, test sensitivity was markedly lower in women than men for all models: at 7.5% 10-year risk, sensitivity was 65.1% and 68.2% in men and 24.0% and 33.4% in women for PCE and models using stably-selected variables, respectively; at 10% 10-year risk, sensitivity was 53.7% and 52.3% in men and 16.8% and 20.2% in women for QRISK3 and models using stably-selected variables, respectively. Specificity was correspondingly higher in women than men. However, the sensitivity in women at 5% 10-year risk threshold increased to 50.1%, 58.5% and 55.7% for PCE, QRISK3 and models using stably-selected variables, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Use of sparse sex-specific variables improved CVD risk prediction compared with PCE but not QRISK3. At current risk thresholds, PCE and QRISK3 work less well for women than men but sensitivity was improved in women using a 5% 10-year risk threshold. Use of sex-specific risk thresholds should be considered in any re-evaluation of CVD risk calculators. TRANSLATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction is an important component of clinical risk management and disease prevention. We find that at risk prediction thresholds used by currently applied risk prediction algorithms (PCE 7.5% 10-year risk threshold in the US and QRISK3 10% risk threshold in the UK), sensitivity of these risk prediction tools is markedly lower in women than in men. This sex inequality implies that women are proportionately less likely to receive appropriate clinical management including lipid-lowering therapy. If the risk prediction threshold is lowered to 5% 10-year risk in women, then sensitivity in women is substantially increased.

A prospective study of smoking-related white blood cell DNA methylation markers and risk of bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer, a common neoplasm, is primarily caused by tobacco smoking. Epigenetic alterations including DNA methylation have the potential to be used as prospective markers of increased risk, particularly in at-risk populations such as smokers. We aimed to investigate the potential of smoking-related white blood cell (WBC) methylation markers to contribute to an increase in bladder cancer risk prediction over classical questionnaire-based smoking metrics (i.e., duration, intensity, packyears) in a nested case-control study within the prospective prostate, lung, colorectal, and ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and the alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene cancer (ATBC) Prevention Study (789 cases; 849 controls). We identified 200 differentially methylated sites associated with smoking status and 28 significantly associated (after correction for multiple testing) with bladder cancer risk among 2670 previously reported smoking-related cytosine-phosphate-guanines sites (CpGs). Similar patterns were observed across cohorts. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses indicated that cg05575921 (AHHR), the strongest smoking-related association we identified for bladder cancer risk, alone yielded similar predictive performance (AUC: 0.60) than classical smoking metrics (AUC: 0.59-0.62). Best prediction was achieved by including the first principal component (PC1) from the 200 smoking-related CpGs alongside smoking metrics (AUC: 0.63-0.65). Further, PC1 remained significantly associated with elevated bladder cancer risk after adjusting for smoking metrics. These findings suggest DNA methylation profiles reflect aspects of tobacco smoke exposure in addition to those captured by smoking duration, intensity and packyears, and/or individual susceptibility relevant to bladder cancer etiology, warranting further investigation.

Hair-Derived Exposome Exploration of Cardiometabolic Health: Piloting a Bayesian Multitrait Variable Selection Approach.

Cardiometabolic health is complex and characterized by an ensemble of correlated and/or co-occurring conditions including obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. It is affected by social, lifestyle, and environmental factors, which in-turn exhibit complex correlation patterns. To account for the complexity of (i) exposure profiles and (ii) health outcomes, we propose to use a multitrait Bayesian variable selection approach and identify a sparse set of exposures jointly explanatory of the complex cardiometabolic health status. Using data from a subset (N = 941 participants) of the nutrition, environment, and cardiovascular health (NESCAV) study, we evaluated the link between measurements of the cumulative exposure to (N = 33) pollutants derived from hair and cardiometabolic health as proxied by up to nine measured traits. Our multitrait analysis showed increased statistical power, compared to single-trait analyses, to detect subtle contributions of exposures to a set of clinical phenotypes, while providing parsimonious results with improved interpretability. We identified six exposures that were jointly explanatory of cardiometabolic health as modeled by six complementary traits, of which, we identified strong associations between hexachlorobenzene and trifluralin exposure and adverse cardiometabolic health, including traits of obesity, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. This supports the use of this type of approach for the joint modeling, in an exposome context, of correlated exposures in relation to complex and multifaceted outcomes.

Association of hair polychlorinated biphenyls and multiclass pesticides with obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia in NESCAV study.

Obesity, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia are well-established risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and have been associated with exposure to persistent organic pollutants. However, studies have been lacking as regards effects of non-persistent pesticides on CVD risk factors. Here, we investigated whether background chronic exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and multiclass pesticides were associated with the prevalence of these CVD risk factors in 502 Belgian and 487 Luxembourgish adults aged 18-69 years from the Nutrition, environment and cardiovascular health (NESCAV) study 2007-2013. We used hair analysis to evaluate the chronic internal exposure to three PCBs, seven organochlorine pesticides (OCs) and 18 non-persistent pesticides. We found positive associations of obesity with hexachlorobenzene (HCB), ß-hexachlorocyclohexane (ß-HCH) and chlorpyrifos, diabetes with pentachlorophenol (PCP), fipronil and fipronil sulfone, hypertension with PCB180 and chlorpyrifos, and dyslipidemia with diflufenican and oxadiazon, among others. However, we also found some inverse associations, such as obesity with PCP, diabetes with γ-HCH, hypertension with diflufenican, and dyslipidemia with chlorpyrifos. These results add to the existing evidence that OC exposure may contribute to the development of CVDs. Additionally, the present study revealed associations between CVD risk factors and chronic environmental exposure to currently used pesticides such as organophosphorus and pyrethroid pesticides.