Risk of Heart Failure among Individuals with Metabolic Syndrome Components

Metabolic dysfunction of metabolic syndromes (MetS) has been widely reported to be a significant risk factor for heart failure (HF). While this interaction is well studied, what combinations of MetS factors pose the greatest risk for HF are not well defined. We hypothesize that some components of MetS are of higher risk of HF compared to others. We explored the relationship between the independent components of MetS and their combinatory effect on the risk of HF. All metabolic syndrome components except hypertriglyceridemia were significant individually (P-value<0.001), while hypertension (HTN) and diabetes or insulin resistance (IR) had the higher risk of developing heart failure when taken collectively. The odds of heart failure among the individuals who had HTN and IR was 7.7 times those who didn't have any MetS components. We observed the additive effect of number of metabolic components on HF, for the individuals who had only one MetS symptom, the odds of HF was 5.4 time compared to those who didn't have any of MetS symptoms. Similarly, these odds of HF were 6.4 and 7.4 times for those who had at least 2 or at least 3 symptoms respectively. Even though obesity is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, we found the protective effect of obesity on heart failure, which is an interesting result and needs further investigation. Keywords: Retrospective case-control study, metabolic syndrome, heart failure, obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance, risk analysis