Heart failure & cardiomyopathiesCohort study
Imaging-Derived Sarcopenic Obesity and Cardiovascular Outcomes
- Cohort study with genome-wide association and transcriptomic analysis
- deep learning
- CMR-derived
Authors' conclusion
These results establish sarcopenic obesity as a clinically meaningful cardiovascular risk phenotype and point to viable therapeutic targets.
Study context
- Population
- Individuals with CMR examinations
- Participants
- 55,768 CMR examinations
- Exposure
- Higher vs lower sarcopenic obesity index
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Outcomes per higher sarcopenic obesity index
Higher sarcopenic obesity indexHazard ratio (95% CI)
incident HF
1.31(1.16–1.49)
CV death
1.51(1.25–1.81)
all-cause mortality
1.37(1.26–1.49)
Per higher sarcopenic obesity index, as printed
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Genome-wide association analysis
- Loci identified for sarcopenic obesity
- 16
- Loci included HF and nonischemic cardiomyopathy genes; colocalization implicated shared causal variants in HF
Transcriptomic profiling of skeletal muscle
- Sarcopenic obesity loci specifically modulated during muscle atrophy; ACVR2B (bimagrumab target) identified
Original publication
Imaging-Derived Sarcopenic Obesity and Cardiovascular Outcomes. J Am Coll Cardiol. Published 1 July 2026. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2026.05.022
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it