Reply to the letter to the editor for “Obesity and survival in patients with heart failure and preserved systolic function: A U-shaped relationship”

Article Outline

• Reference
• Copyright

We thank Drs Lu and Chen for their interest in our article.¹ We agree that there were some baseline differences in the groups examined that may affect survival. However, as we note in the article, although patients with lower body mass indices were older and had more malignancy, those with higher body mass indices had more diabetes and hypertension. Furthermore, significant differences in the mortality hazard ratios for the different body mass indices persisted after adjusting for these variables (P < .0001). A U-shaped relationship between mortality and body mass index was observed after adjusting for potentially confounding variables, including malignancy. Finally, we do acknowledge that additional studies are needed to determine if interventions to induce weight loss or gain can change outcome for patients with heart failure.

Back to Article Outline

Reference 

1. Kapoor JR, Heidenreich PA. Obesity and survival in patients with heart failure and preserved systolic function: A U-shaped relationship. Am Heart J. 2010;159:75–80
   • View In Article
   • Abstract
   • Full Text
   • Full-Text PDF (188 KB)
   • CrossRef