Physiological Serum Uric Acid Concentrations Correlate with Arterial Stiffness in a Sex-Dependent Manner.

In humans, uric acid is a product of purine metabolism that impacts the vascular system. In addition to effects on arterial vascular tone, associations between serum uric acid concentrations—even in the physiological range—and arterial hypertension and vascular-mediated end-organ damage due to an impact on vascular stiffness have been postulated. Therefore, we aim to investigate a possible cross-sectional association between serum uric acid concentrations in the physiological range and differences in arterial pulse wave velocity (PWV), an indicator of vascular remodeling, with a focus on possible differences between female and male individuals. We analyzed cross-sectional phenotypic and laboratory parameters, including PWV from 70,649 individuals in the population-based German National Cohort (NAKO) in a sex-specific manner. In parallel, we applied a machine learning approach to identify and quantify factors associated with PWV in a hypothesis-free manner. Our analysis uncovered a positive association between serum uric and PWV which was detected even if only individuals with urate values in the physiological range were included (n = 64,095). This correlation was more pronounced in women than in men. In multivariable linear regression models, we observed an association of uric acid (mmol/l) with PWV (m/s) of β = 1.12 (95