Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Highly Sensitive Cardiac Troponin Levels in a Preventive Medicine Cohort.
BACKGROUND
Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and highly sensitive cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) are associated with risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality as well as incident heart failure. A link of low CRF to subclinical cardiac injury may explain this association. We hypothesized that CRF would be inversely associated with hs-cTnT measured in healthy adults over age 50.


METHODS AND RESULTS
We evaluated 2498 participants (24.7% female, mean age 58.7 years) from the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study between August 2008 and January 2012. Plasma specimens obtained shortly before CRF estimates by Balke treadmill testing were used for hs-cTnT assays. CRF was grouped into low CRF (category 1), moderate CRF (categories 2-3), and high CRF (categories 4-5). Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the association of CRF with hs-cTnT. The prevalence of measurable hs-cTnT (≥3 ng/L) was 78.5%. In multivariable analyses, low-fit individuals were significantly more likely than high-fit individuals to have elevated hs-cTnT (≥14 ng/L) (odds ratio 2.47, 95% CI 1.10-5.36).


CONCLUSIONS
In healthy older adults, CRF is inversely associated with hs-cTnT level adjusted for other risk factors. Prospective studies are needed to evaluate whether improving CRF is effective in preventing subclinical cardiac injury.
['DeFina|Laura F|LF|', 'Willis|Benjamin L|BL|', 'Radford|Nina B|NB|', 'Christenson|Robert H|RH|', 'deFilippi|Christopher R|CR|', 'de Lemos|James A|JA|']
D000368:Aged D000072599:Cardiorespiratory Fitness D015331:Cohort Studies D005080:Exercise Test D005260:Female D064368:Healthy Volunteers D006801:Humans D016015:Logistic Models D008137:Longitudinal Studies D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D015999:Multivariate Analysis D016017:Odds Ratio D020107:Troponin T
cardiorespiratory fitness troponin exercise capacity hs‐cTnT