Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors and Serum Expression Analyses

In a recent study, published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, researchers evaluated the role of HOMER1, S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine (SAH), homocysteine (Hcy), and fibroblast growth factors (FGF) 23 in coronary heart disease (CHD), and additionally identified coronary heart disease risk factors. Do you know the signs and symptoms of heart disease? According to the study’s primary investigator, Zhixin Zhang, “the levels of FGF23, SAH, Hcy, and HOMER1 in CHD patients were significantly higher than those in normal control, and increased with the aggravation of the severity of the disease, which is of great significance for the clinical diagnosis and evaluation of the disease.”

Zhang and colleagues retrospectively enrolled 137 patients with CHD and 138 healthy controls from individuals who had visited their center between March 2020 and April 2021. Disease subtypes within the CHD group included stable angina pectoris (SAP; n = 48), unstable angina pectoris (UAP; n = 46), and acute myocardial infarction (AMI; n = 43). The investigators used the Gensini scale to determine that patients’ level of coronary artery stenosis, and HOMER1, SAH, Hcy, and FGF 23 levels were explored for correlations with CHD via the Spearman method. Researchers also used multivariate logistic regression to identify coronary heart disease risk factors.

Investigators noted that “The body mass index (BMI), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglyceride (TG), and glucose levels of the SAP group, UAP group and AMI group were significantly higher than those of the control group.” The CHD group also exhibited significantly more smoking, alcohol use, hypertension, and diabetes than the controls (p <0.05). High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels for each CHD subgroup were significantly lower than the control group (p <0.05).

Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors and Conclusions

The serum levels of SAH, Hcy, HOMER1, and FGF23 were were significantly higher in the CHD group than in the control group. Additionally, levels in the SAP group were significantly lower than those in the UAP group, and both groups levels were significantly lower than those in the AMI group (p <0.05). Authors reported that serum HOMER1, FGF 23, SAH, and Hcy levels had a positive correlation with Gensini score (r = 0.376, 0.623, 0.291, 0.372, respectively; p <0.01).

According to Zhang, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, alcohol consumption, obesity, HDL-C, FGF23, SAH, Hcy, and HOMER1 were independent risk factors for CHD. Ultimately, the study’s authors described that “levels of FGF23, SAH, Hcy, and Homer1 tend to increase in patients with CHD compared with normal population, and the more severe the disease, the higher the levels, which has certain reference value for the clinical diagnosis of CHD and the evaluation and monitoring of the disease.

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