Association of obesity subphenotypes with indices of cardiac remodeling in the Framingham heart study

Background Previous studies have reported that obesity-related metabolic abnormalities (eg, diabetes and hypertension) lead to myocardial dysfunction and adverse cardiac remodeling. However, it is unclear whether such cardiac remodeling is from obesity or obesity-related metabolic abnormalities. We hypothesize that overweight and obesity are associated with adverse cardiac remodeling independent of associated metabolic abnormalities. Methods We evaluated 6,639 participants from the Framingham Heart Study who underwent echocardiography and had no prevalent cardiovascular disease. Individuals were classified into 6 obesity sub-phenotypes based on metabolic health (metabolically healthy or metabolically unhealthy) and body mass index (normal weight, overweight, or obese). Obesity subphenotypes were related to echocardiographic measures using multivariable regression analyses. Results Mean age was 49 years and 55% were women. Overweight and obesity were consistently associated with adverse cardiac remodeling in both metabolic healthy and unhealthy participants. Among metabolically healthy participants, compared to the normal weight group (referent), overweight and obesity were significantly associated with increased left ventricular mass (11.6 and 21.4 gm), left atrium end-systolic dimension (0.27 and 0.48 cm), global longitudinal strain (0.82 and 1.06%), and the ratio of early diastolic trans-mitral flow velocity to early diastolic mitral annulus velocity (0.35 and 0.87) (all P < .001). Additionally, obesity was significantly associated with mitral annular plane systolic excursion (0.08 cm, P < .001) and relative wall thickness (0.01, P = .001) compared to the normal weight referent group. Conclusions Increasing body weight was associated with adverse cardiac remodeling regardless of metabolic health status, which suggests that obesity may directly increase the risk of adverse cardiac remodeling.