Prevention & lipidsCohort study
Frailty as a risk-enhancing factor across the cardiovascular–kidney–metabolic framework: findings from the UK Biobank
- Prospective cohort study
- multivariable-adjusted Cox models
Authors' conclusion
Frailty was consistently associated with incident CVD across the CKM spectrum.
Study context
- Population
- UK Biobank participants free of baseline cardiovascular disease (CVD), across AHA cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) stages 0–361,766 developed CVD
- Participants
- 408,163 participants
- Exposure
- Pre-frail and frail vs robust
- Outcome
- Incident CVD (hospital and mortality records)
- Follow-up
- Median 15.1 years
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Incident CVD · 15-year cumulative incidence
Each group vs robustHazard ratio (95% CI)
Pre-frail
1.24(1.22–1.26)
Frail
1.85(1.79–1.92)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Incident CVD by CKM stage (subgroup)
- Associations observed across all CKM stages, including early-stage CKM health, with relative attenuation in CKM stage 1
Original publication
Frailty as a risk-enhancing factor across the cardiovascular–kidney–metabolic framework: findings from the UK Biobank. Eur J Prev Cardiol. Published 24 March 2026. doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwag170
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it