The connection between sleep deficiency and coronary artery disease: Complexities and controversies.

The growing burden of coronary artery disease (CAD) has led to a deeper exploration of the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying the disease process with the hope of finding novel treatments to reduce CAD morbidity and mortality. Sleep is a normal physiologic phenomenon essential for maintaining homeostasis. Disruption in sleep physiology has been linked to the activation of pro-inflammatory cytokines that may predispose to a greater risk of CAD.

Cardiometabolic Health Outcomes Associated With Discordant Visceral and Liver Fat Phenotypes: Insights From the Dallas Heart Study and UK Biobank.

Objective: To evaluate the cardiometabolic outcomes associated with discordant visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and liver fat (LF) phenotypes in 2 cohorts.

Patients And Methods: Participants in the Dallas Heart Study underwent baseline imaging from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2002, and were followed for incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) through 2013. Associations between VAT-LF groups (low-low, high-low, low-high, and high-high) and outcomes were assessed using multivariable-adjusted regression and were replicated in the independent UK Biobank.

Effects of liraglutide on visceral and ectopic fat in adults with overweight and obesity at high cardiovascular risk: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial.

Background: Visceral and ectopic fat are key drivers of adverse cardiometabolic outcomes in obesity. We aimed to evaluate the effects of injectable liraglutide 3·0 mg daily on body fat distribution in adults with overweight or obesity without type 2 diabetes at high cardiovascular disease risk.

Methods: In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 4, single centre trial, we enrolled community-dwelling adults, recruited from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, with BMI of at least 30 kg/m or BMI of at least 27 kg/m with metabolic syndrome but without diabetes and randomly assigned them, in a 1:1 ratio, to 40 weeks of treatment with once-daily subcutaneous liraglutide 3·0 mg or placebo, in addition to a 500 kcal deficient diet and guideline-recommended physical activity counselling.

Diagnostic and prognostic considerations for use of natriuretic peptides in obese patients with heart failure.

Natriuretic peptides (NPs, B-type natriuretic peptide /BNP and NT-proBNP) are universally used biomarkers with established cut-points to aid in the diagnosis of heart failure (HF). It has been demonstrated that an inverse relationship exists between obesity, defined by the body mass index (BMI), and NPs, such that the application of NPs to diagnostic algorithms in HF remains challenging in overweight and obese patients. Some have advocated that lowering the cut-offs for NPs or using a correction for high BMI may improve the diagnostic accuracy in obese individuals.