This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Higher BMI increases hospitalization risk for PAD, CLI
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
After adjusting for potential confounders, BMI was positively linked to incident hospitalized peripheral artery disease, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Caitlin W. Hicks, MD, MS, second-year fellow in the division of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed data from 13,988 black and white patients (mean age, 54 years; 45% men; 26% black) from the ARIC study without a history of PAD at baseline from 1987 to 1989.
Data collected at baseline included lifestyle, sociodemographics and CV risk factors or diseases, as well as HDL, total cholesterol, systolic BP and medication use.
The outcomes of interest were incident hospitalizations with a discharge diagnosis of critical limb ischemia and PAD through 2013. Follow-up was conducted for a median of 24.4 years.
During follow-up, incident PAD without CLI occurred in 2.7% of patients and 1.4% of patients had PAD with CLI.
Increased BMI was strongly associated with PAD without CLI after adjusting for potential confounders (HR per 1-standard deviation [SD] increment = 1.23; 95% CI, 1.11-1.37). The relationship between BMI and PAD with CLI was present regardless of whether BMI was modeled continuously (HR per 1-SD increment in BMI = 1.51; 95% CI, 1.34-1.69) or categorically (P < .005).
After adjusting for potential mediators, the association was no longer significant between BMI and PAD without CLI. The link was significant for PAD with CLI when BMI was linearly modeled (HR per 1-SD increment = 1.19; 95% CI, 1.04-1.36). BMI had a strong association with PAD with CLI vs. without CLI (P < .001).
“These data suggest that obesity may play a role in the development and progression of PAD and support the notion that both weight loss and medical management of obesity-related CVD risk factors are essential for decreasing the risk of limb-threatening ischemia,” Hicks and colleagues wrote. – by Darlene Dobkowski
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts