Weight Fluctuation Influences Outcomes in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease
Weight fluctuation increases the risk for cardiovascular events and death in patients with preexisting coronary artery disease, according to a recent study.
While weight cycling is a known risk factor for coronary events and mortality in patients without cardiovascular diseases, it is not known whether repeated shifts in body weight affect patients with preexisting coronary artery disease.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
RELATED CONTENT
Weight Cycling Linked to Heart Disease Even In Women of Normal Weight
Fatty Liver Disease Linked to CAD Risk
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To examine the association, researchers performed a post hoc analysis of body weight data from 9509 participants involved in the Treating to New Targets trial. Incidents of coronary events, cardiovascular events, death, myocardial infarction, or stroke were assessed in relation to fluctuations in participants’ weight.
A total of 2091 coronary events, 2727 cardiovascular events, and 487 deaths occurred over the course of the study.
After adjusting for risk factors, baseline lipid levels, mean body weight, and weight change, researchers found that each increase of 1 standard deviation in body-weight variability was associated with an increased risk for a coronary event (2091 events; hazard ratio 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01 to 1.07; P=0.01), a cardiovascular event (2727 events; hazard ratio 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.07; P<0.001), and death (487 events; hazard ratio1.09; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.12; P<0.001).
Patients with the highest variation in body weight had a 64% increased risk for a coronary event, 85% higher risk for a cardiovascular event, 124% higher risk for death, 117% higher risk for myocardial infarction, and 136% increased risk for stroke compared with participants who had the lowest variations in body weight.
“Among participants with coronary artery disease, fluctuation in body weight was associated with higher mortality and a higher rate of cardiovascular events independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors,” the researchers concluded.
—Melissa Weiss
Reference:
Bangalor S, Fayyad R, Laskey R, et al. Body-weight fluctuations and outcomes in coronary disease [published online April 6, 2017]. N Engl J Med. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1606148.