About the Authors

Johannes Tobias Neumann

Affiliation Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, Hamburg University Heart Center, Hamburg, Germany

Aki S. Havulinna

Affiliation National Institute for Health and Welfare, Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, Helsinki, Finland

Tanja Zeller

Affiliations Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, Hamburg University Heart Center, Hamburg, Germany, German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), Partner Site Hamburg/Lübeck/Kiel, Germany

Sebastian Appelbaum

Affiliation Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, Hamburg University Heart Center, Hamburg, Germany

Tarja Kunnas

Affiliation Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Tampere Medical School, Tampere, Finland

Seppo Nikkari

Affiliation Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Tampere Medical School, Tampere, Finland

Pekka Jousilahti

Affiliation National Institute for Health and Welfare, Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, Helsinki, Finland

Stefan Blankenberg

Affiliations Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, Hamburg University Heart Center, Hamburg, Germany, German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), Partner Site Hamburg/Lübeck/Kiel, Germany

Karsten Sydow

Affiliation Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, Hamburg University Heart Center, Hamburg, Germany

Veikko Salomaa

veikko.salomaa@thl.fi

Affiliation National Institute for Health and Welfare, Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, Helsinki, Finland

Competing Interests

This study has received partial support from commercial sources (Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer, Abbott Diagnostics, SIEMENS, Thermo Fisher and Roche Diagnostics). This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: VS SB. Performed the experiments: PJ VS. Analyzed the data: JTN ASH TZ SA VS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TZ. Wrote the paper: JTN ASH VS SB. Critical revision of the manuscript: TK SN PJ KS. Contributed important intellectual input: TK SN PJ KS.