Intermediate Cardiometabolic Risk: Study Author Explains this "Critical Inflection Point"

A new study on trends in US cardiometabolic health (CMH) from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University has raised the alert level among clinician scientists about how to at least slow the distinct declines the research found in optimal levels of adiposity, cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.

"To be honest, our findings were pretty dire," said Meghan O'Hearn, MS, lead author of the research, published this month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

In this second of 3 conversations with Patient Care^® O'Hearn talks about where the steepest declines were seen, the growing racial/ethnic and socioeconimic disparities in CMH, and how critical it will be to catch your patients at intermediate levels of CMH - those with prediabetes, prehypertension, and overweight - to reduce their risks for morbidity and mortality.

Part 1: US Cardiometabolic Health at Alarming Suboptimal Levels, Says Lead Author of New NHANES Analysis

Part 3: Impact of Social Determinants of Health on Key Cardiometabolic Measures Amplified by New Research

Meghan O’Hearn, MS, is a doctoral student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University under the mentorship of Dariush Mozaffarian, MD. O'Hearn's research focus incudes understanding the use of dietary quality metrics to monitor global diet-related disease burdens as well as how research can collaborate with the food industry to address the growing double burden of malnutrition globally.

Reference: O'Hearn M, Lauren BN, Wong JB, Kim DD, Mozzafarian D. Trends and disparities in cardiometabolic health among US adults, 1999-2018. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022. Published online ahead of print July 4, 2022. https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2022.04.046