α-adducin Gly460Trp variant increases the risk of stroke in hypertensive Dutch women

The Gly460Trp variant of the a-adducin gene has been associated with renal sodium retention and salt-sensitive hypertension. Independent of blood pressure, salt sensitivity has been related to cerebrovascular events. We studied the risk of stroke, coronary heart disease (CHD), and myocardial infarction (MI) associated with the a-adducin variant and examined the extent to which this risk is modified by the presence of hypertension. We performed a case-cohort study in a prospective cohort of 15 236 initially healthy Dutch women. We applied a Cox proportional hazards model with an estimation procedure adapted for case-cohort designs to study the relation of the polymorphism and CHD (n=210), MI (n=71), any stroke (n=74), and ischemic stroke (n=49). Subjects with the Gly460Trp variant had a 2.8 times higher risk of stroke (95% confidence intervals [CI] 1.3 to 5.8) under the dominant genetic model, which did not attenuate after adjustment. The same pattern was found under per-allele comparison. Risk of ischemic stroke in the variant allele carriers was 3.9 times higher than in subjects with the common genotype (95% CI 1.7 to 8.6) using dominant inheritance model. The same patterns were found under per-allele comparison. CHD and MI were not related to the variant. The risk of ischemic stroke was more pronounced among women with systolic hypertension (10.9; 95% CI 3.6 to 31.5). The findings in this prospective study in a population based cohort of Dutch women strongly suggest that presence of the a-adducin Gly460Trp polymorphism increases the risk of stroke. This risk is particularly elevated in the presence of systolic hypertension.