Associations of plasma arginine, homoarginine, and ADMA/SDMA levels with risk of ischemic stroke: A nested case-control study

Background and aims

Previous studies have linked aberrant nitric oxide (NO) metabolism with vascular diseases. Although arginine, homoarginine, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), and symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) are involved in NO metabolic pathways, their associations with ischemic stroke (IS) remain unclear.

Methods and results

We conducted a case-control study nested within the Prospective Follow-up Study on Cardiovascular Morbidity and Mortality in China (PFS-CMMC) (2013–2018, n = 16,457; median follow-up time: 5.3 y), which included 321 incident cases of IS and 321 controls matched by age and sex. Plasma arginine, homoarginine, ADMA/SDMA were measured by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Conditional logistic regression analyses were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between the plasma metabolites and IS risk.

After adjustment for body mass index, educational attainment, smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and family history of stroke, the OR of IS risk for the highest versus the lowest quartile was 2.46 (95% CI: 1.39–4.35, P trend = 0.004) for homoarginine and 2.22 (95% CI: 1.24–3.97, P trend = 0.003) for ADMA/SDMA. Spline regression analyses indicated positive dose-response relationships of homoarginine and ADMA/SDMA with the IS risk (both P for linearity <0.05). No significant association was observed between plasma arginine and IS risk.

Conclusions

Elevated plasma levels of homoarginine and ADMA/SDMA were associated with a higher risk of IS. Our novel findings suggest a role of NO metabolism in the pathogenesis of IS.