Hypertension Is Associated With an Earlier Age of Onset of Huntington's Disease

12Citations
Citations of this article
23Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Background and Objective: Hypertension (HTN) is associated with worsening clinical outcomes in neurodegenerative diseases. The relationship between HTN and the age of diagnosis (ADx) of Huntington's disease (HD) is not clear, however. This study sought to determine if the presence of HTN in adult patients with premanifest HD was associated with an earlier ADx compared with normotensive patients with HD. Methods: Premanifest participants from Enroll-HD were included if they had a cytosine-adenine-guanine greater than or equal to 36, baseline diagnostic confidence level less than 4, baseline total functional capacity score greater than 11, and baseline motor score less than 21. There were 3020 premanifest participants with HD, and 293 reported a diagnosis of HTN. HTN was transformed into a time-dependent variable, and a Cox proportional hazard survival model determine if the presence of HTN affected the time to motor conversion. Baseline cytosine-adenine-guanine–age product score, cytosine-adenine-guanine repeat length, baseline age, sex, baseline body mass index, smoking history, and region were included as covariates. Results: Participants with HTN had an increased annualized hazard of motor conversion compared to normotensive participants with HD (hazard ratio, 1.29; 95% confidence interval, 1.02–1.64; P = 0.034). Conclusions: A previous study reported a protective effect of HTN in HD, but did not account for the fact that the prevalence of HTN increases with age. By controlling for this confounder, we more accurately outline the association between the ADx of HD to demonstrate that a diagnosis of HTN may be associated with an earlier ADx of HD. These results represent an association, however, and further investigation is warranted. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Schultz, J. L., Harshman, L. A., Langbehn, D. R., & Nopoulos, P. C. (2020). Hypertension Is Associated With an Earlier Age of Onset of Huntington’s Disease. Movement Disorders, 35(9), 1558–1564. https://doi.org/10.1002/mds.28062

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free