Circulating galectin-3 is associated with cardiometabolic disease in the community

Background-circulating galectin-3 (gal-3) concentrations are associated with an increased incidence of heart failure,atrial fibrillation,chronic kidney disease,and mortality. recent evidence suggests that gal-3 may also be an important modulator of cardiometabolic traits such as adiposity,insulin resistance,and hyperglycemia. we examined the associations of blood gal-3 concentrations and cardiometabolic disease traits in the framingham heart study. methods and results-in cross-sectional analyses of 2946 framingham heart study participants (mean age 59 years,55% women),higher gal-3 concentrations were associated with higher body mass index,waist circumference,and triglycerides (p<0.0001 for all). higher gal-3 was associated with greater odds of obesity (multivariable-adjusted odds ratio 1.16 per 1-sd increase in log-gal-3,95% ci 1.06-1.28,p=0.002) and hypertension (odds ratio 1.18,95% ci 1.07-1.29,p=0.0006). in prospective analyses,gal-3 was associated with incident metabolic syndrome (hazard ratio 1.22,95% ci 1.10-1.36,p=0.0002) and diabetes (hazard ratio 1.21,95% ci 1.04-1.41,p=0.02),in age- and sex-adjusted,but not multivariable-adjusted models. conclusions-in this large,community-based sample,circulating gal-3 was associated with abdominal adiposity,dyslipidemia,and hypertension in cross-sectional analyses,but gal-3 did not predict incident cardiometabolic disease after adjusting for cardiometabolic risk factors. future investigations should focus on further elucidating mechanisms linking gal-3 with cardiometabolic disease and on assessing whether modulation of the gal-3 pathway might have positive cardiometabolic effects. © 2016 the authors.