Adjusting for reverse causation to estimate the effect of obesity on mortality after incident heart failure in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study.
OBJECTIVE
The lower mortality rate of obese patients with heart failure (HF) has been partly attributed to reverse causation bias due to weight loss caused by disease. Using data about weight both before and after HF, this study aimed to adjust for reverse causation and examine the association of obesity both before and after HF with mortality.


METHODS
Using the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, 308 patients with data available from before and after the incidence of HF were included. Pre-morbid and post-morbid obesity were defined based on body mass index measurements at least three months before and after incident HF. The associations of pre-morbid and post-morbid obesity and weight change with survival after HF were evaluated using a Cox proportional hazard model.


RESULTS
Pre-morbid obesity was associated with higher mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 2.49) but post-morbid obesity was associated with increased survival (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.88). Adjusting for weight change due to disease as a confounder of the obesity-mortality relationship resulted in the absence of any significant associations between post-morbid obesity and mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrated that controlling for reverse causality by adjusting for the confounder of weight change may remove or reverse the protective effect of obesity on mortality among patients with incident HF.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.|Interventional Cardiovascular Research Center, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran.
Maryam
M
Shakiba
Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Hamid
H
Soori
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Mohammad Ali
MA
Mansournia
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Seyed Saeed Hashemi
SSH
Nazari
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran.
Yahya
Y
Salimi
D015984:Causality; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015431:Weight Loss
Body mass index; Heart failure; Mortality; Obesity; Weight loss