Diagonal earlobe crease tied to higher cardiovascular risk

A diagonal earlobe crease, especially when it is complete, bilateral, deep, and has accessory creases, appears to independently predict an increased cardiovascular risk, reveals a study.

Individuals with a diagonal earlobe crease had a significantly higher estimated risk of cardiovascular mortality (p<0.001). As the presence of crease increased, the proportion of individuals with moderate, high, or very high cardiovascular risk also increased significantly: 23.8 percent had no crease, 35.6 percent had unilateral creases, and 58 percent had bilateral creases (p<0.001).

Notably, a significantly higher mean cardiovascular risk was observed for those with the longest (p<0.001) and deepest (p<0.001) diagonal earlobe crease and with accessory creases (p<0.001).

A total of 1,050 adults residing in Spain were included in this study. The investigators assessed the following participant characteristics: age, sex, body mass index, smoking habit, blood pressure, glycaemia, glycated haemoglobin, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and cardiovascular events.

The Framingham-Anderson equation, the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation equation, and the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Score calculator were used to estimate the cardiovascular risk. The investigators examined both earlobes and recorded the presence of diagonal earlobe crease, length and depth, and the presence of accessory creases.

Chi-square test, Student's t test, analysis of variance, and Mann-Whitney or Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyse the results. Finally, a script in R was generated (https://cran.r-project.org/) to extract the functions of cardiovascular risk.