Relationship of overweight and obesity with adverse clinical outcomes in adult patients with heart failure in a Latin American hospital.
Body Weight and Outcomes in Heart Failure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-6108.2026.1.49146Keywords:
Body mass index, Obesity, Overweight, Heart failure, Obesity paradoxAbstract
Aim: This study aimed to determine the association between overweight, obesity and adverse clinical outcomes in adult patients diagnosed with heart failure in a Latin American hospital during 2023. Methods: A secondary cross-sectional study was conducted including patients aged ≥18 years with heart failure diagnosed by clinical, echocardiographic, and ICD-10 criteria. Body mass index was used to classify weight status. Logistic regression models estimated odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Machine learning models were applied to identify factors associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Results: Male sex was more prevalent among patients with adverse clinical outcomes (p=0.04). Pulmonary hypertension was significantly more frequent in underweight patients (p<0.001). Age ≥60 years (OR 5.64; 95% CI 2.27–14.83) was associated with higher odds of adverse outcomes, whereas overweight was associated with lower odds (OR 0.23; 95% CI 0.08–0.65). Random Forest analysis identified age as the most relevant variable. Conclusions: Overweight was associated with a lower probability of adverse clinical outcomes in hospitalized patients with heart failure, while older age was associated with worse outcomes. These findings should be interpreted with caution due to the composite outcome and potential residual confounding.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Juan Esteban Castro Medina, Juan Jose Espitia De La Hoz, Luis Fernando Marin Ortega, Tania Acosta Vergara
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