Risk of incident ischemic stroke according to the metabolic health and obesity states in the Vascular-Metabolic CUN cohort

Abstract

Background

Whether obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease in the absence of metabolic comorbidities remains under debate. Indeed, some obese individuals may be at low risk of metabolic-related complications, while normal-weight individuals may not be “healthy.”

Aims

To assess the incidence of ischemic stroke according to the metabolic health and obesity states of 5171 participants from the Vascular-Metabolic CUN cohort.

Methods

A Cox proportional-hazard analysis was conducted to estimate the hazard ratio and their 95% confidence interval of stroke according to the metabolic health and obesity states based on TyG index and Adult Treatment Panel-III criteria, during 9.1 years of follow-up.

Results

After 50,056.2 person-years of follow-up, 162 subjects developed an ischemic stroke (incidence rate 3.23 per 1000 person-years). Metabolically healthy obese subjects did not show greater risk of stroke, while metabolically unhealthy participants, obese and non-obese, had an increased risk of stroke, compared with healthy non-obese. The hazard ratios for the multivariable adjusted model were 1.55 (95% CI: 1.36–1.77) and 1.86 (95% CI: 1.57–2.21), respectively.

Conclusions

Metabolically unhealthy individuals exhibited a greater risk of ischemic stroke than metabolically healthy obese individuals.