Body mass index in patients with positive or suspected coronary artery disease: A large Croatian cohort

Abstract

Background: BMI is one of the measures used in clinical epidemiological studies as well as in clinical diagnosis of obesity. Obesity and BMI have been implicated as independent risk factors for CAD. On contrary, the relationship between BMI and CAD may be absent or sometimes shows the "obesity paradox". The aim of the study presented was to determine the distribution of BMI in Croatian patients with confirmed or suspected coronary artery disease. Materials and methods: 728 Croatian patients who underwe nt coronary angiography were involved in the study. The concentrations of glucose, lipid parameters, homocysteine and fibrinogen were determined with standard methods. BMI was calculated after measurement of body weight and height. Results: There were no significant differences between three BMI-categories for CA D(+) and CA D(-) patients, neither for the patients with and without diabetes or smokers/non-smokers. In CA D(+) group, there was no relation between myocardial infarction (MI) and BMI, but there was significantly more obese patients with arterial hypertension (P = 0.005). Though statistically significant, differences in plasma cholesterol (P = 0.001), HDL-cholesterol (P < 0.001), apolipoprotein A-I (P < 0.001) and triglyceride (P = 0.002) concentrations between normal, overweight and obese patients were clinically irrelevant. No significant correlations were observed between HDL-cholesterol, Apo A-I, triglycerides and hypertension with BMI. Conclusions: In patients with positive or suspected coronary artery disease, BMI is not associated with CAD or with other studied CAD-risk factors with the exception of hypertension.