Background: The triglyceride–glucose (TyG) index has been proposed as a potential predictor of adverse prognosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, its prognostic value in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and hypertension remains unclear. Methods: A total of 1467 hospitalized patients with CHD and hypertension from January 2021 to December 2021 were included in this prospective and observational clinical study. The TyG index was calculated as Ln [fasting triglyceride level (mg/dL) × fasting plasma glucose level (mg/dL)/2]. Patients were divided into tertiles according to TyG index values. The primary endpoint was a compound endpoint, defined as the first occurrence of all-cause mortality or total nonfatal CVDs events within one-year follow up. The secondary endpoint was atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD) events, including non-fatal stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA) and recurrent CHD events. We used restricted cubic spline analysis and multivariate adjusted Cox proportional hazard models to investigate the associations of the TyG index with primary endpoint events. Results: During the one-year follow-up period, 154 (10.5%) primary endpoint events were recorded, including 129 (8.8%) ASCVD events. After adjusting for confounding variables, for per standard deviation (SD) increase in the TyG index, the risk of incident primary endpoint events increased by 28% [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04–1.59]. Compared with subjects in the lowest tertile (T1), the fully adjusted HR for primary endpoint events was 1.43 (95% CI 0.90–2.26) in the middle (T2) and 1.73 (95% CI 1.06–2.82) in highest tertile (T3) (P for trend = 0.018). Similar results were observed in ASCVD events. Restricted cubic spline analysis also showed that the cumulative risk of primary endpoint events increased as TyG index increased. Conclusions: The elevated TyG index was a potential marker of adverse prognosis in patients with CHD and hypertension.

Regulating cardiac differentiation to maintain normal heart development and function is very important. At present, biological functions of H19 in cardiac differentiation is not completely clear. To explore the functional effect of H19 during cardiac differentiation. Expression levels of early cardiac-specific markers Nkx-2.5 and GATA4, cardiac contractile protein genes α-MHC and MLC-2v were determined by qRT-PCR and western lot. The levels of lncRNA H19 and miR-19b were detected by qRT-PCR. We further predicted the binding sequence of H19 and miR-19b by online softwares starBase v2.0 and TargetScan. The biological functions of H19 and Sox6 were evaluated by CCK-8 kit, cell cycle and apoptosis assay and caspase-3 activity. The expression levels of α-MHC, MLC-2v and H19 were upregulated, and miR-19b was downregulated significantly in mouse P19CL6 cells at the late stage of cardiac differentiation. Biological function analysis showed that knockdown of H19 promoted cell proliferation and inhibits cell apoptosis. H19 suppressed miR-19b expression and miR-19b targeted Sox6, which inhibited cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis in P19CL6 cells during late-stage cardiac differentiation. Importantly, Sox6 overexpression could reverse the positive effects of H19 knockdown on P19CL6 cells. Downregulation of H19 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis during late-stage cardiac differentiation by regulating the negative role of miR-19b in Sox6 expression, which suggested that the manipulation of H19 expression could serve as a potential strategy for heart disease.

Background: Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is considered an important source of bioactive molecules that can influence coronary arteries directly and is related to the concurrent presence of both obstructive coronary stenosis and myocardial ischemia independently. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become an emergent health problem worldwide. Aim: This cross-sectional study aimed to address the relationship between the volume of EAT and NAFLD and other cardiovascular risk factors in the general population. Materials and methods: In this study, we selected a total of 2,238 participants aged at least 40 years from the Jidong community in Tangshan, China. The 64-slice CT was used to survey the volume of EAT and liver ultrasonography was used for the diagnosis of NAFLD. The study cohorts were compared according to EAT volume. Results: Cardiovascular risk factors, such as coronary artery calcium score, carotid intima-media thickness, NAFLD, and ideal cardiovascular health metrics were also found to be related to EAT. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, NAFLD groups showed significant association with higher EAT volume, after correcting for main cardiovascular disease risk factors (OR [95% CI], 1.407 [1.117, 1.773]). Conclusion: Our findings in a general community population provide evidence that EAT is strongly associated with NAFLD and other cardiovascular risk factors.

The relationship between social support and mortality, especially cardio-cerebrovascular mortality, still has some limitations in the assessment of social support, sample selection bias, and short follow-up time. We used the data from 2005 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to examine this relationship. The study analyzed a total of 6776 participants, divided into Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 according to the social support score (0–1; 2–3; 4–5). Multivariable adjusted COX regression analyses of our study showed that Group 3 and Group 2 had a reduced risk of all-cause and cardio-cerebrovascular mortality (Group 3 vs 1, HR: 0.55, P < 0.001; HR: 0.4, P < 0.001; Group 2 vs 1, HR: 0.77, P = 0.017; HR: 0.58, P = 0.014) compared with Group 1. The same results were observed after excluding those who died in a relatively short time. Additionally, having more close friends, being married or living as married, and enough attending religious services were significantly related to a lower risk of mortality after adjustment. In brief, adequate social support is beneficial in reducing the risk of all-cause mortality and cardio-cerebrovascular mortality in middle-aged and older adults, especially in terms of attending religious services frequency, the number of close friends, and marital status.