- High, stable levels of urinary albumin excretion (UAE) and serum creatinine are associated with a higher risk of first-time heart failure, according to a new study.
- Such levels of urinary albumin excretion were also tied to a higher risk of all-cause mortality.
- However, the study could not establish that kidney dysfunction was the cause of heart failure or that both are not the products of comorbidities.
- The study presents a potentially valuable diagnostic biomarker of heart failure.
People with consistently high levels of urinary albumin excretion (UAE) and serum creatinine in their urine are at higher risk of developing heart failure, a new study finds. This finding supports the known connection between kidney (renal) failure and heart failure.
For the study, researchers analyzed urine-sample data from nearly 7,000 Dutch participants. Individuals were 28 to 75 years of age at the start of the study, which followed them for 11 years.
According to the results, participants with stable and high levels of both UAE and serum creatinine in their urine samples had a higher risk of experiencing heart failure for the first time, while those with elevated levels of UAE had an increased risk of dying from all causes.
Similarly, high levels of serum creatinine were not found to be linked to all-cause mortality.
The study is an attempt to explore the potential health risks for people whose UAE and serum creatinine levels remain high over the long term instead of fluctuating as they do in most people. These findings may provide physicians with a new biomarker of susceptibility for heart failure.
The study is published in the
“Circulating in the bloodstream are lots of substances. Some of them are very tiny substances like, for example, sodium or glucose molecules, and some of them are large substances like proteins and antibodies, and that kind of thing,” explained Dr. Richard Wright, a cardiologist specializing in heart failure and…
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