Obesity tied to target organ damage indices

Obesity shows a significant relationship with several indices of asymptomatic cardiac remodelling and vascular atherosclerosis, according to a study. Moreover, this association is mediated by systolic blood pressure (BP).

Specifically, obesity significantly correlated with 24-h systolic BP (b, 3.72, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 2.24‒5.21; p<0.001), common carotid artery (CCA) intima-media thickness (IMT; b, 0.04, 95 percent CI, 0.02‒0.05; p<0.001), internal carotid artery (ICA) IMT (b, 0.03, 95 percent CI, 0.01‒0.05; p=0.020), and left ventricular mass index (LVMI; b, 7.54, 95 percent CI, 4.25‒10.83; p<0.001).

In mediation analysis, 24-h systolic BP mediated the relationship between BMI and CCA-IMT by 27.9 percent, the association between BMI and ICA-IMT by 31.3 percent, and the link between BMI and LVMI by 18.1 percent.

This cross-sectional study included 2,555 adults (52.0 percent women) who visited a local Hypertension Unit with valid measures on weight, height, 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring, office BP measurements, echocardiography, carotid ultrasonography, and blood creatinine levels.

BMI was used to classify participants as having normal weight (<25 kg/m²), overweight (25‒29.9 kg/m²), or obesity (≥30 kg/m²). The authors estimated CCA- and ICA-IMT, LVM, LVMI, and estimated glomerular filtration rate and used these as target organ damage (TOD) indices.

The association between obesity and BP measurements or TOD was examined using linear regression models. For mediation analysis, structural equation modelling was used.