Association Between Serum Klotho and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in US Middle-Aged and Older Individuals: A Cross-Sectional Study from NHANES 2013–2016

Abstract

Purpose

This study sought to examine the potential association between serum Klotho levels and the prevalence of COPD in the United States.

Patients and Methods

This study was a cross-sectional analysis involving 4361 adults aged 40–79 years participating in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted between 2013 and 2016. Our investigation utilized multivariate logistic regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression to explore the potential correlation between serum Klotho concentrations and the prevalence of COPD. Additionally, we conducted stratified and interaction analyses to evaluate the consistency and potential modifiers of this relationship.

Results

In this study encompassing 4631 patients (with an average age of 57.6 years, 47.5% of whom were male), 445 individuals (10.2%) were identified as having COPD. In the fully adjusted model, ln-transformed serum Klotho was negatively associated with COPD (OR = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.51–0.99; p = 0.043). Meanwhile, compared with quartile 1, serum Klotho levels in quartiles 2–4 yielded odds ratios (ORs) (95% CI) for COPD were 0.84 (0.63~1.11), 0.76 (0.56~1.02), 0.84 (0.62~1.13), respectively. A negative relationship was observed between the ln-transformed serum Klotho and occurrence of COPD (nonlinear: p = 0.140). the association between ln-transformed serum Klotho and COPD were stable in stratified analyses.

Conclusion

Serum Klotho was negatively associated with the incidence of COPD, when ln-transformed Klotho concentration increased by 1 unit, the risk of COPD was 29% lower.

Keywords:

• α-Klotho (Klotho)
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• cross-sectional study
• National Health and Nutrition Survey
• NHANES

Acknowledgments

It’s wonderful to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Jie Liu from the Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at the Chinese PLA General Hospital and all authors for this manuscript.

Disclosure

All authors approved the final manuscript and declared that they had no conflicts of interest for this work.