Novel Risk Factor for Heart Failure Identified

A measure called bioimpedance is a simple and painless way to make an early diagnosis of heart failure (HF) in the general population, according to new research.

Bioimpedance is the measure of how well fat and blood impedes electric current. The study examined leg bioimpedance, specifically, in 500,451 individuals aged 49 to 69 years without HF who were listed in the UK Biobank.

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“[U]sing an agnostic machine learning approach in a phenome‐wide manner, we established the strongest features associated with incident [HF], which included well‐established (eg, coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus), previously suggested (eg, obesity, microalbuminuria, anemia), and novel (eg, leg bioimpedance, mean reticulocyte volume) potential risk factors of incident heart failure,” the researchers write.

Although mean reticulocyte volume and leg bioimpedance emerged as 2 novel factors, leg bioimpedance appeared as the most important new marker for predicting HF.

Over a 9.8-year follow-up, those who had developed HF had lower leg bioimpedance than those who did not develop HF. Even after adjusting for known HF risk factors, leg bioimpedance was inversely associated with HF.

“A simple model of exclusively noninvasive measures, combining leg bioimpedance with history of myocardial infarction, age, and sex provides accurate predictive capacity,” the researchers concluded.

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Lindholm D, Fukaya E, Leeper NJ, Ingelsson E. Bioimpedance and new‐onset heart failure: a longitudinal study of >500 000 individuals from the general population. 2018;7(13):e008970. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.118.008970.

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