Late-Onset Asthma Predicts Cardiovascular Disease Events: the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort

Background: asthma is a heterogeneous syndrome with different clinical subtypes that is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (cvd). we hypothesized that the late-onset subtype of asthma is associated with a higher risk of incident cvd. methods and results: participants from the wisconsin sleep cohort free of cvd at baseline were followed for a mean (sd) of 13.9 (5.9) years for development of cvd (myocardial infarction,angina,stroke,coronary revascularization,heart failure,or cvd death). late-onset asthma was defined as physician-diagnosed asthma at age ≥18 years. multivariable cox regression models adjusted for age,sex,and cvd risk factors were used to assess associations of late-onset asthma and incident cvd. the 1269 participants were 47.3 (8.0) years old; 166 participants had asthma (111 late-onset,55 early-onset). participants with late-onset asthma compared to nonasthmatics were more likely to be female (67% versus 44%) and to have a higher body-mass index (32.2 versus 29.4 kg/m2) (p<0.05). mean age of asthma diagnosis in the late-onset group was 39.5 (9.6) years versus 8.9 (5.7) years in the early-onset group (p<0.0001). late-onset asthmatics had a higher adjusted risk of incident cvd than nonasthmatics (hazard ratio 1.57,95% ci 1.01-2.45,p=0.045). there was no interaction between body-mass index and age of asthma diagnosis on incident cvd (p=0.83). conclusions: in a large cohort study of adults followed prospectively for over a decade,late-onset asthmatics had an increased risk of incident cvd events that persisted after adjustment for age,sex,and cvd risk factors. copyright © 2016 the authors. published on behalf of the american heart association,inc.,by wiley blackwell.