Which amino acids are associated with cardiovascular events?

A recent study has recognized alanine and glutamine as new amino acids that appear to increase the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) and reduce the hazard of ischaemic stroke, respectively.

In addition, phenylalanine and tyrosine have been shown to correlate with CAD, ischaemic stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events.

Overall, 9,584 Finnish men (age 57.4±7.0 years, body mass index 27.2±4.2 kg/m²) from the Metabolic Syndrome in Men study with neither CVD nor type 1 diabetes at baseline were included in this current analysis of nine amino acids as potential risk factors for incident CVD events.

Over 12.3 years of follow-up, the authors recorded 662 CAD events, 394 ischaemic stroke events, and 966 CVD (CAD and stroke combined) events. They also measured amino acids using a nuclear magnetic resonance platform.

Cox regression analysis revealed a significant association of phenylalanine and tyrosine with increased risk of CAD and CVD events and of phenylalanine with a higher risk of ischaemic stroke following adjustment for confounding factors.

In addition, glutamine correlated significantly with a lower risk of stroke and CVD events and nominally with CAD events, while alanine showed a nominal association with CAD events.

“We identified alanine as a new amino acid associated with increased risk of CAD, and glutamine as a new amino acid associated with decreased risk of ischaemic stroke,” the authors said. “We also confirmed that phenylalanine and tyrosine were associated with CAD, ischaemic stroke, and CVD events.”