The EPIC-CVD Working Group

The EPIC-CVD project is the cardiovascular component of the pan-European EPIC project, focusing primarily on coronary heart disease and stroke. By ascertaining and validating about 25 000 incident cardiovascular events from across 10 European countries, EPIC-CVD provides a powerful opportunity to conduct wide-ranging cardiovascular studies. Examples of goals of the EPIC-CVD project include:

  • identification of genetic and non-genetic (e.g. dietary, behavioural, biochemical) risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke;
  • evaluation and derivation of predictive models for future cardiovascular events;
  • assessment of causality of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases;
  • identification of gene–environment interactions; and
  • contribution to global cardiovascular consortia projects.

EPIC-CVD uses a case–cohort study design involving about 25 000 incident cases and about 15 000 randomly selected participants to act as controls from the EPIC-InterAct “subcohort”. As well as the extensive questionnaire data and physical measurements, samples from EPIC-CVD participants have been used to assay:

  • genome-wide genotypes through several “SNP arrays” and imputation;
  • about 30 clinical chemistry biomarkers, including lipids and apolipoproteins, liver and kidney markers, inflammation markers, and glycaemic markers; and
  • panels of vitamins, carotenoids, and fatty acids.

EPIC-CVD provides the first consideration across Europe of risk scores with information on the interplay of nature and nurture together with biomarkers of lifestyle, biological pathways, vascular injury, and ageing.

EPIC-CVD has been funded primarily by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme, the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council, and the European Research Council.

 

Selected publications

  1. Danesh J, Saracci R, Berglund G, Feskens E, Overvad K, Panico S, et al.; EPIC-Heart (2007). EPIC-Heart: the cardiovascular component of a prospective study of nutritional, lifestyle and biological factors in 520,000 middle-aged participants from 10 European countries. Eur J Epidemiol. 22(2):129–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-006-9096-8 PMID:17295097
  2. Steur M, Johnson L, Sharp SJ, Imamura F, Sluijs I, Key TJ, et al. (2021). Dietary fatty acids, macronutrient substitutions, food sources and incidence of coronary heart disease: findings from the EPIC-CVD case-cohort study across nine European countries. J Am Heart Assoc. 10(23):e019814. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.120.019814 PMID:34796724
  3. Lassale C, Tzoulaki I, Moons KGM, Sweeting M, Boer J, Johnson L, et al. (2018). Separate and combined associations of obesity and metabolic health with coronary heart disease: a pan-European case-cohort analysis. Eur Heart J. 39(5):397–406. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehx448 PMID:29020414
  4. Gaziano L, Sun L, Arnold M, Bell S, Cho K, Kaptoge SK, et al.; Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration/EPIC-CVD/Million Veteran Program (2022). Mild-to-moderate kidney dysfunction and cardiovascular disease: observational and Mendelian randomization analyses. Circulation. 146(20):1507–17. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.060700 PMID:36314129
  5. Ricci C, Wood A, Muller D, Gunter MJ, Agudo A, Boeing H, et al. (2018). Alcohol intake in relation to non-fatal and fatal coronary heart disease and stroke: EPIC-CVD case-cohort study. BMJ. 361:k934. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k934 PMID:29844013
  6. Key TJ, Appleby PN, Bradbury KE, Sweeting M, Wood A, Johansson I, et al. (2019). Consumption of meat, fish, dairy products, and eggs and risk of ischemic heart disease. Circulation. 139(25):2835–45. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.038813 PMID:31006335

Contact details/Working Group leader

Professor John Danesh
Head, Department of Public Health and Primary Care
University of Cambridge
Cambridge
United Kingdom
jd292@medschl.cam.ac.uk