Vitamin D receptor genetic polymorphism is significantly associated with decreased risk of hypertension in a Chinese Han population.

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphism and hypertension in a Chinese Han population. The authors genotyped 3 tagSNPs (rs11574129, rs2228570, and rs739837) of the VDR gene using TaqMan assays in a case-control study including 2409 patients with hypertension and 3063 controls. The results showed that rs2228570 presented statistical correlations with decreased risk of male hypertension after adjustment for confounding factors, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of additive, dominant, and recessive models were 0.828 (0.74-0.927), 0.75 (0.631-0.89), and 0.816 (0.67-0.995), and P values were .001, .001, and .044, respectively. Significant associations were found in the smoking population and ORs (95% CIs) of additive and dominant models were 0.81 (0.69-0.952) and 0.71 (0.552-0.913) (P values .011 and .008), respectively, after adjustment for covariates. Quantitative trait analysis indicated that the untreated cases with TT genotype of rs2228570 showed higher systolic blood pressure compared with the TC/CC genotype (P=.015). Our findings suggest that VDR genetic polymorphism rs2228570 is significantly associated with the decreased risk of hypertension in Chinese men and smokers.