title: The association of incident hypertension with metabolic health and obesity status: definition of metabolic health does not matter.
abstract: Metabolically healthy obese (MHO) phenotype refers to obese individuals with a favourable metabolic profile. Its prognostic value remains controversial and may partly depend on differences in how the phenotype is defined. We aimed to investigate whether the MHO phenotype is associated with future development of incident hypertension in a Korean population according to various definitions of metabolic health.
  
  
  
  The study population comprised 31 033 Koreans without hypertension. Participants were stratified into metabolically healthy nonobese (MHNO), metabolically unhealthy nonobese (MUNO), metabolically healthy obese (MHO) and metabolically unhealthy obese (MUO) by body mass index (cut-off value, 25·0 kg/m(2) ) and metabolic health state, using four different definitions: Adult Treatment Panel (ATP)-III, Wildman, Karelis and the homoeostasis model assessment (HOMA) criteria.
  
  
  
  Over the median follow-up period of 35·0 months (range, 4·5-81·4 months), 4589 of the 31 033 individuals (14·8%) developed incident hypertension. Compared with the MHNO group, the MHO group showed increased association with incident hypertension with multivariate-adjusted odds ratios of 1·56 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1·41-1·72), 1·58 (95% CI 1·42-1·75), 1·52 (95% CI 1·35-1·71) and 1·46 (95% CI 1·33-1·61), when defined by ATP-III, Wildman, Karelis and HOMA criteria, respectively.
  
  
  
  MUO individuals showed the highest association with the incident hypertension (adjusted odds ratios up to 2·00). MHO subjects showed an approximately 1·5-fold higher association with incident hypertension than their nonobese counterpart regardless of the definition of metabolic health used. Thus, considering both metabolic health and obesity is important for the assessment of potential cardiovascular outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yu Mi
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Chang Hee
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jung Eun
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Screening and Promotion Center, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jenie Yoonoo
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Screening and Promotion Center, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Eun Hee
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Joong-Yeol
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Screening and Promotion Center, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Hong-Kyu
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Woo Je
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology*; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008660:Metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications*; D010641:Phenotype; D012307:Risk Factors