Midkine levels and its relationship with atherosclerotic risk factors in essential hypertensive patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Hypertension (HT) is one of the risk factors associated with atherosclerosis. Midkine (MK) plays a role as a growth factor in various biologic and pathologic events. In some reports, MK expression has been shown to be linked with vascular smooth muscle proliferation and neo-angiogenesis in atherosclerotic vessels. The aim was to research relationship of MK serum levels with some atherosclerotic risk factors in hypertensive patients. METHODOLOGY: This study examined 60 patients with essential HT and 30 healthy controls. Serum biochemistry, including lipid profile, MK, Vitamin B12, C-reactive protein, zinc and copper levels were obtained. RESULTS: MK levels of the HT patients were significantly higher than the control group (24.8 ± 6.8 ng/mL vs. 18.39 ± 5.6 ng/mL, respectively, P < 0.01). Lipid profile parameters such as total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) were also significantly higher in HT patients (P < 0.021, P < 0.01, and P < 0.01, respectively). Zinc levels were 179.13 ± 34.06 µg/dL and 172.55 ± 45.47µg/dL in the HT and control group, respectively. Serum MK levels were positively correlated with diastolic (r = 0.288, P < 0.05) and systolic blood pressures (r = 0.390, P < 0.002), and also with serum total cholesterol (r = 0.406, P < 0.002) and LDL cholesterol (r = 0.318, P < 0.015) levels. Furthermore MK was also negatively correlated with zinc and Vitamin B12levels (r = -0.298, P < 0.023, r = -0.334, P < 0.027, respectively). CONCLUSION: This study has demonstrated an important association between increased serum MK levels and risk factors of atherosclerosis such as HT, increased total and LDL cholesterol.