Higher monocyte count with normal white blood cell count is positively associated with 10-year cardiovascular disease risk determined by Framingham risk score among community-dwelling Korean individuals

Abstract

Thecardiovasculardisease(CVD) has been identified as a leading cause of premature mortality among middle-aged and elderlyindividualsglobally. Inflammation plays an important role in aging and age-related diseases, such as atherosclerosis and CVD.Whitebloodcell(WBC)countis an inexpensive, simple biomarker of systemic inflammations and includes severalcellsubtype counts, such as neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, basophils, and eosinophils. However, which component of a WBCcounthas the ability to predict CVD remains controversial. The objective of this study was to assess the association betweenmonocytecounts and10 year-CVDriskamongcommunity-dwellingKoreanindividualsusing theFraminghamriskscore(FRS). We studied a total of 627 participants aged over 30 years who underwent routine health examinations. The mean age of the study population was 48.1 ± 11.7 years, and 56.9% were male. In the multiple regression analysis, the independent contribution ofmonocytecounttoFramingham10-yearCVDriskwas 0.217 ± 0.092 (P = .018) after adjusting for confounding variables. We found that of the various WBCs,monocytecountis an independent predictor of CVDrisk. Further larger-scale prospective cohort studies are warranted to determine these associations in the future.