White blood cell count and the incidence of hyperuricemia: insights from a community-based study

Abstract

Hyperuricemia (HUA) is a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD). The relationship between HUA and white blood cell (WBC) count remains unknown. A sampling survey for CKD was conducted in Sanlin community in 2012 and 2014. CKD was defined as proteinuria in at least the microalbuminuric stage or an estimated GFR of 60 mL/(min·1.73 m²). HUA was defined as serum uric acid>420 µmol/L in men and>360 µmol/L in women. This study included 1024 participants. The prevalence of HUA was 17.77%. Patients with HUA were more likely to have higher levels of WBC count, which was positively associated with HUA prevalence. This association was also observed in participants without CKD, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, or obesity. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that WBC count was independently associated with the risk for HUA in male and female participants. Compared with participants without HUA, inflammatory factors such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-α, and interleukin 6 increased in participants with HUA. Hence, WBC count is positively associated with HUA, and this association is independent of conventional risk factors for CKD.

Keywords

white blood cell count / hyperuricemia / chronic kidney disease / inflammation

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Project for the Construction of Clinical Key Specialty, Project of Special Fund for Health-Scientific Research (No. 201002010), National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFC1305402), National Key Technology R&D Program (No. 2011BAI10B00), Experimental Animal Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (No. 15140902800), Key Projects of National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Nos. 2012CB517700 and 2012CB517604), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81700647, 81270782, and 30771000), and Key Discipline Construction Projects approved by the Health Development Planning Commission of Shanghai.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jian Liu, Pingyan Shen, Xiaobo Ma, Xialian Yu, Liyan Ni, Xu Hao, Weiming Wang, and Nan Chen declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (No. 201029), and was in accordance with the principle of the Helsinki Declaration II.

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