Prolonged or Transition to Metabolically Unhealthy Status, Regardless of Obesity Status, Is Associated with Higher Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Mortality in Koreans

Juhee Lee, So Young Kwak, Dahyun Park, Ga Eun Kim, Clara Yongjoo Park, Min Jeong Shin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The risk of chronic disease and mortality may differ by metabolic health and obesity status and its transition. We investigated the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer incidence and mortality according to metabolic health and obesity status and their transition using the nationally representative Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) and the Ansan-Ansung (ASAS) cohort of the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study. Participants that agreed to mortality linkage (n = 28,468 in KNHANES and n = 7530 adults in ASAS) were analyzed (mean follow-up: 8.2 and 17.4 years, respectively). Adults with no metabolic risk factors and BMI <25 or ≥25 kg/m2 were categorized as metabolically healthy non-obese (MHN) or metabolically healthy obese (MHO), respectively. Metabolically unhealthy non-obese (MUN) and metabolically unhealthy obese (MUO) adults had ≥1 metabolic risk factor and a BMI < or ≥25 kg/m2, respectively. In KNHANES participants, MUN, and MUO had higher risks for cardiovascular mortality, but not cancer mortality, compared with MHN adults. MHO had 47% and 35% lower risks of cancer mortality and all-cause mortality, respectively, compared to MHN. Similar results were observed in the ASAS participants. Compared to those persistently MHN, the risk of CVD was greater when continuously MUN or MUO. Transitioning from a metabolically healthy state to MUO also increased the risk of CVD. Few associations were found for cancer incidence. Using a nationally representative cohort and an 18-year follow-up cohort, we observed that the risk of CVD incidence and mortality and all-cause mortality, but not cancer incidence or mortality, increases with a continuous or a transition to an unhealthy metabolic status in Koreans.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1644
JournalNutrients
Volume14
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Apr 1

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2020R1A2C2005580). This research was also carried out with the support of “Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (Project No. PJ014709022021)” Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • cardiovascular disease
  • metabolic health
  • mortality
  • obesity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Food Science
  • Nutrition and Dietetics

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