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Serum amyloid A protein and carotid intima-media thickness in healthy young subjects.

and 3 cm below the carotid bifurcation on each side were used in the analyses. In the present study, because SAA and hs-CRP had a skewed distribution, these were used after log-transformations in statistical analyses. A p value <0.05 was considered significant. The mean levels of SBP were 110.8±10.3 (SD) mmHg, DBP 65.6±5.8 mmHg, HDL-cholesterol 65.5 ±14.5 mg/dL, LDL-cholesterol 99.7±26.2 mg/dL, glucose 88±7.8 mg/dL, and IMT 0.42±0.07 mm. The median levels (interquartile) of SAA and hs-CRP were 4.0 (2.2−3.7) mg/L and 0.3 (0.1−0.5) mg/L, respectively. As shown in Table 1, SAA was significantly and positively correlated with IMT in both the simple correlation and ageand gender-adjusted partial correlation test. While SAA and hs-CRP was significantly and positively correlated (r =0.52, p=0.04) in the ageand gender-adjusted correlation test, hsCRP was not correlated with IMT. No other parameters were significantly correlated with SAA and IMT, respectively. Different production sites of SAA and CRP are suggested, but generally SAA has clinical implicaChronically systemic vascular inflammation contributes to the precursor/development of atherosclerosis. Serum amyloid A (SAA) protein, like C-reactive protein (CRP), is a major inflammatory molecule. While SAA is predominantly secreted from hepatocytes, its mRNA is also expressed in vascular endothelial cells, smooth muscular cells and macrophages . SAA is reportedly more sensitive for predicting cardiovascular disease than other inflammatory molecules, possibly due to its role in lipid transport. SAA levels have been reported to be associated with carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT), an established measure for vascular pathology, in chronic disease states (e.g., haemodialysis), but not in healthy conditions. The present preliminary study is the first to describe the relationship between SAA and carotid IMT in healthy young subjects who did not obviously manifest atherosclerosis. One-hundred asymptomatic Japanese participants (men/women=39/61; mean age=22.1±1.9 (SD), range=18−25 years), without acute infection or any history of cardiovascular, liver and renal diseases and without any medication, were recruited. This study was approved by the Jichi Medical University Ethics Committee and each subject gave informed consent. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), blood glucose, lipid panels, high sensitivity CRP (hsCRP), SAA and carotid IMT were determined in each participant. The IMT of bilateral common carotid arteries was measured ultrasonographically in the supine position, and the average values at points 1, 2