Serum IL8 is not associated with cardiovascular events but with all-cause mortality

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to investigate if IL8 levels were associated with incident cardiovascular (CV) events (CVE) and mortality (all-cause, CV, and cancer) in a cohort of 60 years old men and women from Stockholm (60YO). METHODS: The 60YO comprises 4232 participants; baseline period: 1997–1999. The cohort is matched annually to population registries to record deaths and incident CVE. Serum IL8 was measured in 4011 participants and categorized in quartiles. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the CVE and mortality risk, expressed as hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Potential confounding was addressed by adjusting for traditional CV risk factors (CVE estimates) and by sex, life style habits, metabolic factors (mortality estimates). Laplace regression was used to calculate the difference in time until a certain percentage of the cohort died according to IL8 levels. RESULTS: During 16.5 years follow up, 522 incident CVE were recorded and 647 study participants died. IL8 was not associated with CVE risk (IL8 Q4 vs Q1, HR of 0.95; 95% CI 0.75–1.22). Compared to Q1, IL8 Q4 was associated with all-cause mortality (adjusted HR 1.28; 95% CI 1.02–1.63). No association was observed with CV and cancer related mortality in the fully adjusted model. Participants with IL8 above the median died of any cause ≈1.3 years before the 15% of the population had died. CONCLUSION: Elevated IL8 levels were not associated with CVE risk and CV mortality, but were associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality regardless of the underlying cause. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12872-019-1014-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.