Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » Heart Failure Risks Start Young
Clinical Breakthroughs

Heart Failure Risks Start Young

By Will DossJul 8, 2021
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
Sanjiv Shah, ’00 MD, the Neil J. Stone, MD, Professor and director of the Center for Deep Phenotyping and Precision Therapeutics at the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine, was co-senior author of the study published in The BMJ.

Risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and smoking conferred greater risk of heart failure in young and middle aged individuals as compared to older individuals, according to a study published in The BMJ.

These findings underscore the need for effective behavioral and pharmaceutical interventions that can blunt these risk factors to prevent heart failure down the line, according to Sanjiv Shah, ’00 MD, the Neil J. Stone, MD, Professor, director of the Center for Deep Phenotyping and Precision Therapeutics at the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine and co-senior author of the study.

“If we focus on these younger and middle-aged individuals and lessen their obesity, hypertension, diabetes and smoking, we might be able to make a big difference,” said Shah, who is also a professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology.

Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization for people over the age of 65, part of why it’s typically considered an aging-related disease by clinicians, Shah said. However, the past decade has seen an increasing number of cases in younger and middle-aged people, necessitating a closer examination of risk factors in this population.

In the study, Shah and his collaborators analyzed three large epidemiological cohorts; the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), the Prevention of Renal and Vascular End-stage Disease (PREVEND) study, and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) — of which Northwestern is one of six study sites. The population examined in the current study totaled nearly 25,000 people.

Over a median follow-up of 12.7 years, about one percent of patients under 55, 10 percent of patients aged 55 to 64 and 18 percent of patients 65 and older developed heart failure. Risk factors including hypertension, diabetes, current smoking history and previous myocardial infarction conferred greater relative risk in younger compared with older participants.

For example, hypertension was associated with a threefold increase in risk of future heart failure in young participants, compared with a 1.4-fold risk in elderly participants.

There are limitations to interpreting these results, Shah warned. The impact of risk factors may be somewhat masked in older individuals because hypertension and diabetes are more prevalent among the older population. However, these findings highlight the importance of interventions — such as a new anti-obesity medication studied at Northwestern — that can help mitigate these risk factors in young and middle-aged patients, according to Shah.

“With younger individuals, we have a greater opportunity to intervene and prevent heart failure,” Shah said. “We need to educate patients that they might not only develop obesity or diabetes, but heart failure — which is life-changing.”

This work was partially supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Cardiology Public Health Research
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

Sex-Specific Mechanisms for Major Depressive Disorder Identified in Response to Dysregulated Stress Hormones

Mar 23, 2023

Pre-Surgery Immunotherapy May Increase Survival in Advanced Melanoma

Mar 23, 2023

Hormone Therapy Plus Current Treatments Improves Survival in Prostate Cancer

Mar 22, 2023

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Sex-Specific Mechanisms for Major Depressive Disorder Identified in Response to Dysregulated Stress Hormones

Mar 23, 2023

Pre-Surgery Immunotherapy May Increase Survival in Advanced Melanoma

Mar 23, 2023

Hormone Therapy Plus Current Treatments Improves Survival in Prostate Cancer

Mar 22, 2023

How ChatGPT Has, and Will Continue to, Transform Scientific Research

Mar 21, 2023

New Directions for HIV Treatment

Mar 21, 2023
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
20230317_NM651
20230317_NM610
20230317_NM569
20230317_NM537
20230317_NM331
20230317_NM323
20230317_NM316
20230317_NM336
20230317_NM626
20230317_NM662
20230317_NM655
20230317_NM642

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2023 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.