Dr. Liang Wang Co-Authors Publication in International Journal of Cardiology
Dr. Liang Wang, an Associate Professor for the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in the College of Public Health at East Tennessee State University, has coauthored a paper in the International Journal of Cardiology. The article entitled, “Independent influences of excessive body weight and elevated blood pressure from childhood on left ventricular geometric remodeling in adulthood," studies the impacts of childhood body weight and blood pressure on adult cardiac structure. All other authors are faculty members of the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing, China.
Left ventricular hypertrophy is a condition in which the muscle wall of heart's left pumping chamber (ventricle) becomes thickened (hypertrophy). It is a significant predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Since both obesity and hypertension are independent risk factors of left ventricular hypertrophy, the authors aimed to evaluate the impacts of body weight and blood pressure from childhood on adult left ventricle geometric remodeling.
The study consisted of 1256 adults who had between two and ten measurements of body mass index and blood pressure from childhood. The sample is taken from the Beijing Blood Pressure Cohort Study, a population-based prospective study begun in 1987.
The four left ventricle geometric patterns were identified as: normal geometry, concentric remodeling, eccentric hypertrophy, and concentric hypertrophy. Concentric hypertrophy confers the highest risk of cardiovascular events. The prevalence of abnormal patterns in adults was 26.4% for concentric remodeling, 2.0% for eccentric hypertrophy, and 2.5% for concentric hypertrophy. For childhood values, systolic blood pressure was associated with adult concentric remodeling, whereas body mass index was associated with adult eccentric hypertrophy. Both childhood body mass index and systolic blood pressure were independently associated with adult concentric hypertrophy. For adulthood, body mass index and systolic blood pressure were independently associated with all three abnormal geometric patterns.
The authors conclude that excessive bodyweight and elevated blood pressure during childhood independently influenced the development of left ventricular geometric remodeling during adulthood.
The International Journal of Cardiology is devoted to cardiology in the broadest sense. The journal serves the interest of both practicing clinicians and researchers, with the impact factor of 6.189.