Blood Lead and High-Density Lipoprotein Concentrations in Relation to Human Blood Pressure: A Cross Sectional Study.

Background: While the relationship between blood pressure and blood lead has been studied more extensively, the effect of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) concentration on this relationship remains uncertain. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effect of HDL concentration on the relationship between blood lead and blood pressure. Methods: The research used cross-sectional data from the 2005 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which included 16,451 participants aged 20-60 years. Multivariable linear regression was used to evaluate the correlation among blood lead, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). HDL concentration was determined by low HDL concentration (≤ 49 mg/dl) and high HDL concentration (>49 mg/dl) stratified. The effect of HDL concentration was assessed by an interaction test between blood lead and SBP in multivariable linear regression. Results: In this cross-sectional research, we identified a positive correlation between blood lead and SBP, but not DBP. The relationship between blood lead and SBP was different in the group with low and high HDL concentrations (ß: 0.21 95% Cl:-0.05-0.46 vs. ß:0.47 95% Cl: 0.15-0.79). In addition, high HDL significantly altered the positive correlation between blood lead and SBP (P-value of interaction < 0.001). Conclusion: The study suggests an interaction between HDL and blood lead in elevating SBP, which may have important clinical implications.

Is the EFNB2 locus associated with schizophrenia? Single nucleotide polymorphisms and haplotypes analysis.

Recently, evidence of linkage of schizophrenia to chromosome 13q22-q34 has been demonstrated in multiple studies. Based on structure and function, EFNB2 may be considered as a compelling candidate gene for schizophrenia on chromosome 13q33. We genotyped three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs: rs9520087, rs11069646, and rs8000078) in this region in 846 Han Chinese subjects (477 cases and 369 controls). Significant association between an allele of marker rs9520087 and schizophrenia was found. Furthermore, since no LD was observed in the three SNPs linkage disequilibrium estimation, all three SNPs were used in multiple SNPs haplotype analysis, and a strongly significant difference was found for the common haplotype TTC. Overall our findings indicate that EFNB2 gene may be a candidate susceptibility gene for schizophrenia in the Han Chinese population, and also provide further support for the potential importance of the NMDA receptor pathway in the etiology of schizophrenia.