Association of Soluble Transferrin Receptor with Systolic Hypertension: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2007–2010 and 2015–2018)

Background Hypertension increases the global burden of disease and mortality. Iron metabolism is considered to be an important factor in hypertension. However, as an indicator of iron metabolism, little is known about the associations of soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR) with hypertension. We studied the relationship between sTfR and hypertension. Methods We studied 7416 adults aged 20 years old or above from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative, cross-sectional, population-based study. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine the association between markers of iron metabolism and hypertension. We used the restricted cubic spline (RCS) to characterize the association between sTfR and blood pressure. Results Multiple logistic regression showed that higher sTfR level was associated with higher odds of hypertension (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01–1.05; P = 0.001) after adjustment for all the potential confounding factors. Meanwhile, logistic regression analyses indicated independent associations of high sTfR (P = 0.009) with systolic hypertension after adjusting for various different confounders. The result of restricted cubic splines showed a non-linear association between sTfR and systolic blood pressure was observed among U.S. adults. Conclusions sTfR was found to be an independent factor in systolic hypertension. Meanwhile, our research found a nonlinear relationship between sTfR and systolic blood pressure among U.S. adults.