News: Long-term study finds association between infection-related hospitalizations and heart failure risk

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health has found that adults who were hospitalized for a severe infection, such as respiratory infections or sepsis, were twice as likely to develop heart failure years later. The study is a part of the NHLBI-funded Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, which was created in 1987 to identify risk factors for subclinical atherosclerosis. As participants have aged, the goals of the study have shifted to measure associations of established and suspected coronary heart disease risk factors with both atherosclerosis and other congenital heart diseases.

From 1987 to 2018, 14,468 adults aged 45–64 were followed for up to 31 years, and it was determined that no one began the study with heart failure. However, researchers found that individuals who experienced an infection-related hospitalization had a 2.35 times higher risk of developing heart failure—occurring, on average, seven years after surviving the hospitalization—compared to those who did not get an infection. Despite adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors and including different infection types in the assessment, such as respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, and hospital-acquired sepsis, the researchers found the association with heart failure was consistent no matter the type of infection.

Ryan Demmer, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the study’s senior author, said future research could build on the current findings by validating a causal link between infections and heart failure development and exploring the potential for incorporating infection history into heart failure risk assessments and patient management strategies.

ARIC studies, such as this one, increase the understanding of heart attack risks, hospitalizations from heart failure, and deaths from heart disease, as well as shape clinical guidelines used by healthcare providers to treat coronary heart disease and related conditions. For more information, visit the ARIC website.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in JustCoding.