Relationship of cardiometabolic disease risk factors with age and spinal cord injury duration

This study examines how age and the length of time since a spinal cord injury (SCI) relate to cardiometabolic disease (CMD) risk. CMD includes risk factors like obesity, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and unhealthy cholesterol levels, all of which increase the risk of heart problems and death. The researchers found that older age was linked to a higher risk of CMD in people with SCI. However, longer time since the injury was associated with improvements in some individual risk factors, though it didn't decrease the overall risk of being diagnosed with CMD. The findings suggest that managing weight is especially important for people with SCI to prevent CMD, and that simply having an SCI doesn't automatically increase CMD risks. Age plays a significant role.

• 1
  Age increased odds for CMD diagnosis by 1.05 per year (P = 0.02) and was directly related to elevated body mass index (BMI, β = 0.42, P < 0.05), fasting glucose (β = 0.58, P < 0.01), and higher systolic blood pressure (β = 0.31, P < 0.10).
• 2
  Time since injury contributed to lower risk factor count (β = −0.29, P < 0.10) and higher HDL-C (β = 0.50, P < 0.01), and was not related to odds of CMD diagnosis.
• 3
  Obesity was prevalent (82%) and co-occurred with most other risk factors present.