Serum Levels of Choline-Containing Compounds Are Associated with Aerobic Fitness Level: The HUNT-Study

Anja Bye,Tone F Bathen,Ulrik Wisløff,Guro F Giskeødegård,Stian T Aspenes,Ingrid S Gribbestad,Riyas Vettukattil

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042330

Anja Bye, Tone F Bathen + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0042330

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Journal: PLoS ONE	Publication Date: Jul 30, 2012
Citations: 53	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Abstract

BackgroundCardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide, and the number of people at risk is continuously growing. New methods for early risk prediction are therefore needed to actuate prevention strategies before the individuals are diagnosed with CVD. Several studies report that aerobic fitness level, measured as maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), is the single best predictor of future CVD mortality in healthy people. Based on this, we wanted to study differences between healthy individuals with a large difference in VO2max-level to identify new biomarkers of low aerobic fitness that may also have potential as early biomarkers of CVD risk.Methodology/Principal FindingsSerum samples from 218 healthy individuals with a low VO2max (n = 108, 63 women) or high VO2max (n = 110, 64 women) were analysed with MR metabolomics. In addition, standard clinical-chemical analyses for glucose, lipids, liver enzymes, micro-CRP, and colorimetric analysis on circulating choline were performed. Individuals in the low VO2max-group had increased serum levels of free choline, decreased phosphatidylcholine, increased glucosę and decreased unsaturated fatty acids compared to the individuals in the high VO2max–group.Conclusions/SignificanceAerobic fitness dependent differences in serum levels of free choline and phosphatidylcholine are observed. They should be further studied as potential early markers of CVD risk.

Highlights

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide, and the number of people at risk is continuously growing [1]
More knowledge of the differences between healthy individuals with a large difference in VO2maxlevel will be of great interest to identify new biomarkers of low aerobic fitness that may have a potential as an early biomarker of CVD risk
The high and the low VO2max-groups, which were matched for age, fasting time and level of self-reported physical activity, had significantly different body weight, waist circumference, waist-tohip-ratio, body mass index (BMI), mean arterial blood pressure, resting heart rate, non-fasting glucose, triglycerides, micro Creactive protein (CRP), alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and gamma glutamyl transferase (Gamma-GT), but not total cholesterol (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide, and the number of people at risk is continuously growing [1]. Emerging metabolite profiling technologies have recently made it possible to acquire ‘‘snapshots’’ of the metabolic processes at a given point in time [7,8]. This methodology, termed metabolomics, involves a high throughput analysis of small-molecular metabolites that are downstream products of preceding gene expressions and protein activity. Several studies report that aerobic fitness level, measured as maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), is the single best predictor of future CVD mortality in healthy people. We wanted to study differences between healthy individuals with a large difference in VO2max-level to identify new biomarkers of low aerobic fitness that may have potential as early biomarkers of CVD risk

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