Prognostic Impact of Nutritional Status in Asymptomatic Patients With Cardiac Diseases

BACKGROUND: The prognostic impact of nutritional status is poorly understood in asymptomatic patients with structural and/or functional heart diseases, classified as stage B in the ESC/AHA/ACC chronic heart failure (HF) guidelines. METHODS AND RESULTS: We evaluated the impact of nutrition, using the controlling nutritional status (CONUT) score, calculated by the serum albumin and total cholesterol levels,and lymphocyte number, in 3,421 stage B patients from the Chronic Heart Failure Analysis and Registry in the Tohoku District-2 Study (mean age: 66.9±12.7 years, male: 71.6%). During a median follow-up of 2.89 years, 224 patients died from cardiovascular (45%, n=102) and noncardiovascular (55%, n=123) causes and 139 experienced hospitalization for HF. Survival at 3 years in patients with CONUT 0-1 (reference, n=2,121), 2 (n=693) and ≥3 (n=607) was 95.5, 92.3, and 73.2%, respectively (P<0.001). The adjusted Cox hazard analyses revealed that the CONUT score was significantly associated with increased incidence of all-cause death (hazard ratio 1.27 per point increase; 95% confidence interval, 1.16-1.39, P<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that per point increase in the CONUT score was significantly associated with a 17% increase in HF hospitalization in patients ≥70 years old (P=0.049), but not in those aged <70 years. CONCLUSIONS: In the current stage B patients, poor nutritional status was associated with increased incidence of death for the overall population and of HF hospitalization for the elderly proportion.