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Dynapenic Abdominal Obesity and Risk of Heart Disease among Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study

  • Original Research
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The journal of nutrition, health & aging

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Abstract

Objectives

The vicious cycle of dynapenia and abdominal obesity may have synergistic detrimental impacts on health. We aim to investigate the prospective association between dynapenic abdominal obesity and the risk of heart disease among middle-aged and older adults.

Design

A prospective cohort study.

Setting

English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, 2002–2019.

Participants

A total of 4734 participants aged 50 years and older were included.

Measurements

Individuals were divided into non-dynapenia/non-abdominal obesity (ND/NAO), non-dynapenia/abdominal obesity (ND/AO), dynapenia/non-abdominal obesity (D/NAO), and dynapenia/abdominal obesity (D/AO) according to grip strength and waist circumference at baseline. The Cox proportional hazards models were used to obtain the hazard ratios (HRs) of incident heart disease associated with dynapenia and abdominal obesity after adjusting for potential confounding factors.

Results

During a median follow-up of 9.5 years, 1040 cases of heart disease were recorded. Compared with ND/NAO group, the multivariable HRs were 1.05 (0.92, 1.21) for ND/AO group, 1.31 (0.96, 1.81) for D/NAO group, and 1.39 (1.03, 1.88) for D/AO group. The significant association of D/AO with incident heart disease was detected in women but not in men [HR = 1.55 (1.07, 2.24) and 1.06 (0.60, 1.88), respectively]. Among middle-aged adults, significant associations of D/NAO and D/AO with incident heart disease were observed [HR = 2.46 (1.42, 4.29) and 1.74 (1.02, 2.97), respectively].

Conclusion

Both D/NAO and D/AO might increase the risk of developing heart disease, highlighting the importance of dynapenia and obesity early screening for heart disease prevention.

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Availability of data and materials: The data involved in this study are freely available from the UK Data Service (https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/).

Abbreviations

ELSA:

English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

ND/NAO:

nondynapenic/nonabdominal obesity

D/NAO:

dynapenic/nonabdominal obesity

ND/AO:

nondynapenic/abdominal obesity

D/AO:

dynapenic/abdominal obesity.

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Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the UK data archive and ELSA research group for providing the data. The ELSA study was developed by University College London, the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the National Centre for Social Research. The developers and funders of ELSA had no roles in data analysis, interpretation and manuscript writing.

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2023M730113 to X.Wang); National key research and development program of China (grant number 2022YFC3600804 to Y. Hao). The funders were not involved in the design, implementation, assessment, analysis or interpretation of the data; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Public Health and Epidemic Preparedness & Response, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China

    X. Wang & Yuantao Hao

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, 100191, China

    X. Wang, J. Jiang, W. Hu, Y. Hu & Yuantao Hao

  3. Key Laboratory of Epidemiology of Major Diseases (Peking University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100191, China

    X. Wang, J. Jiang, W. Hu, Y. Hu & Yuantao Hao

  4. Public Health, Department of Social Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, 5650871, Japan

    X. Wang & Jia-Yi Dong

  5. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215000, China

    L.-Q. Qin

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  1. X. Wang
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  2. J. Jiang
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  3. W. Hu
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Contributions

Authors’ contributions: Conceptualization: X. Wang and J-Y. Dong; Methodology: L-Q. Qin and Y. Hu; Formal Analysis: X. Wang and J-Y. Dong; Investigation: J.J and W. Hu; Writing - Original Draft Preparation: X. Wang; Writing - Review & Editing: J.J, W. Hu, L-Q. Qin, Y. Hu, Y. Hao, and J-Y. Dong. All authors saw and approved the final version and no other person made a substantial contribution to the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yuantao Hao or Jia-Yi Dong.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: ELSA has obtained ethical approval from the National Research Ethics Service (MREC/01/2/91). All the participants have completed informed consent before the surveys.

Competing interests: No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.

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Consent for publication: Not applicable.

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Wang, X., Jiang, J., Hu, W. et al. Dynapenic Abdominal Obesity and Risk of Heart Disease among Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study. J Nutr Health Aging 27, 752–758 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1975-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1975-0

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