Reprint of: Blood Sugar Regulation for Cardiovascular Health Promotion and Disease Prevention: JACC Health Promotion Series.

The primary objective of this study was to analyze the most up-to-date evidence regarding whether and how blood sugar regulation influences cardiovascular health promotion and disease prevention by carrying out an umbrella review. Three separate, systematic literature searches identified 2,343 papers in total. Overall, 44 studies were included for data extraction and analysis. The included systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2017, were of good to very good quality (median Overview Quality Assessment Questionnaire score = 17). Identified evidence suggests that cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention services should consider regulation of blood glucose as a key target for intervention. Furthermore, the recommendations for effective intervention and service development/training described here for prevention of CVD should be adopted into evidence-based practice guidelines. Multidisciplinary teams should be formed to deliver multicomponent interventions in community-based settings. There may be substantial opportunities for integrating CVD and diabetes prevention services.

Blood Sugar Regulation for Cardiovascular Health Promotion and Disease Prevention: JACC Health Promotion Series.

The primary objective of this study was to analyze the most up-to-date evidence regarding whether and how blood sugar regulation influences cardiovascular health promotion and disease prevention by carrying out an umbrella review. Three separate, systematic literature searches identified 2,343 papers in total. Overall, 44 studies were included for data extraction and analysis. The included systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2017, were of good to very good quality (median Overview Quality Assessment Questionnaire score = 17). Identified evidence suggests that cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention services should consider regulation of blood glucose as a key target for intervention. Furthermore, the recommendations for effective intervention and service development/training described here for prevention of CVD should be adopted into evidence-based practice guidelines. Multidisciplinary teams should be formed to deliver multicomponent interventions in community-based settings. There may be substantial opportunities for integrating CVD and diabetes prevention services.

Worsening of the Cardiovascular Profile in a Developing Country: The Greater Beirut Area Cardiovascular Cohort.

BACKGROUND: Lebanon has no established governmental noncommunicable diseases surveillance and monitoring system to permit reporting on noncommunicable diseases rates. The last World Health Organization-supported surveillance report showed worrying trends in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. OBJECTIVES: A cardiovascular cohort was established to permit CVD outcomes studies in an urban sample in the Lebanese capital and the study in hand presents the baseline CVD risk factors of this cohort. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out including 501 Lebanese adults (64.3% women) from the Greater Beirut area using random multistage probability sampling. Interviews, physical exams, and blood withdrawal were conducted to collect information on demographic and lifestyle factors, body mass index, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, blood lipids, as well as history of coronary artery diseases, hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, and stroke. Means with SD for continuous variables and frequencies and percentages for categorical variables are reported. RESULTS: The prevalence CVD risk factors including obesity, smoking, diabetes mellitus type 2, hypertension, and dyslipidemia prevalence in the Greater Beirut area was higher than that reported for the general population. Important sex and age differences were also observed, whereby older participants and women had higher rates of obesity, diabetes mellitus type 2, and dyslipidemia and younger participants and men were engaged more in cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. Interestingly, water pipe smoking was similarly prevalent among genders. CONCLUSIONS: The overall prevalence of CVD risk factors in this urban population is higher than reported in the 2010 World Health Organization Stepwise Approach to Surveillance report on the Lebanese population, indicating that the urban population in the capital carries a higher burden of CVD risk. In addition, sex and age difference rates of CVD risk factors highlight the need for tailored public health measures to tackle the sex- and age-based CVD risk factors.

Artificial neural network modeling enhances risk stratification and can reduce downstream testing for patients with suspected acute coronary syndromes, negative cardiac biomarkers, and normal ECGs.

Despite uncertain yield, guidelines endorse routine stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for patients with suspected acute coronary syndromes, unremarkable serial electrocardiograms, and negative troponin measurements. In these patients, outcome prediction and risk stratification models could spare unnecessary testing. This study therefore investigated the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) to improve risk stratification and prediction of MPI and angiographic results. We retrospectively identified 5354 consecutive patients referred from the emergency department for rest-stress MPI after serial negative troponins and normal ECGs. Patients were risk stratified according to thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) scores, ischemia was defined as >5 % reversible perfusion defect, and obstructive coronary artery disease was defined as >50 % angiographic obstruction. For ANN, the network architecture employed a systematic method where the number of neurons is changed incrementally, and bootstrapping was performed to evaluate the accuracy of the models. Compared to TIMI scores, ANN models provided improved discriminatory power. With regards to MPI, an ANN model could reduce testing by 59 % and maintain a 96 % negative predictive value (NPV) for ruling out ischemia. Application of an ANN model could also avoid 73 % of invasive coronary angiograms while maintaining a 98 % NPV for detecting obstructive CAD. An online calculator for clinical use was created using these models. The ANN models improved risk stratification when compared to the TIMI score. Our calculator could also reduce downstream testing while maintaining an excellent NPV, though further study is needed before the calculator can be used clinically.

Quantifying the impact of using Coronary Artery Calcium Score for risk categorization instead of Framingham Score or European Heart SCORE in lipid lowering algorithms in a Middle Eastern population.

BACKGROUND: The use of the Coronary Artery Calcium Score (CACS) for risk categorization instead of the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) or European Heart SCORE (EHS) to improve classification of individuals is well documented. However, the impact of reclassifying individuals using CACS on initiating lipid lowering therapy is not well understood. We aimed to determine the percentage of individuals not requiring lipid lowering therapy as per the FRS and EHS models but are found to require it using CACS and vice versa; and to determine the level of agreement between CACS, FRS and EHS based models. METHODS: Data was collected for 500 consecutive patients who had already undergone CACS. However, only 242 patients met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Risk stratification comparisons were conducted according to CACS, FRS, and EHS, and the agreement (Kappa) between them was calculated. RESULTS: In accordance with the models, 79.7% to 81.5% of high-risk individuals were down-classified by CACS, while 6.8% to 7.6% of individuals at intermediate risk were up-classified to high risk by CACS, with slight to moderate agreement. Moreover, CACS recommended treatment to 5.7% and 5.8% of subjects untreated according to European and Canadian guidelines, respectively; whereas 75.2% to 81.2% of those treated in line with the guidelines would not be treated based on CACS. CONCLUSION: In this simulation, using CACS for risk categorization warrants lipid lowering treatment for 5-6% and spares 70-80% from treatment in accordance with the guidelines. Current strong evidence from double randomized clinical trials is in support of guideline recommendations. Our results call for a prospective trial to explore the benefits/risks of a CACS-based approach before any recommendations can be made.

Sodium intake reduction efforts in Lebanon.

Sodium intake reduction efforts in Lebanon are quite recent and have just started to take effect on the national level. Starting out from an academic institution, the Lebanese Action on Sodium and Health (LASH) campaign was established to counter the increasing prevalence of hypertension and associated adverse health effects. The campaign's strategy was based on four pillars: research, health communication, advocacy, and monitoring. The LASH group set out with determining: baseline sodium intake of the population, main sources of sodium intake, and the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors (KAB) of the population as a situation analysis that prompts for action. This gave LASH tangible evidence of the magnitude of the problem and the need for the government, the food industry, and the consumers, to be mobilized to take part in devising a solution. Currently, Lebanon is at a stage of technically working to reduce the sodium content in the major sources of sodium, namely local bread and bread-like products. The next steps will include implementation of a plan for monitoring industry compliance, while studying other food targets, including dairy products and processed meat. Meanwhile, the health communication plan is ongoing and the Salt Awareness Week is celebrated every year with media appearances of LASH researchers to raise the issue to the public eye.

Artificial neural network modeling using clinical and knowledge independent variables predicts salt intake reduction behavior.

BACKGROUND: High dietary salt intake is directly linked to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Predicting behaviors regarding salt intake habits is vital to guide interventions and increase their effectiveness. We aim to compare the accuracy of an artificial neural network (ANN) based tool that predicts behavior from key knowledge questions along with clinical data in a high cardiovascular risk cohort relative to the least square models (LSM) method. METHODS: We collected knowledge, attitude and behavior data on 115 patients. A behavior score was calculated to classify patients' behavior towards reducing salt intake. Accuracy comparison between ANN and regression analysis was calculated using the bootstrap technique with 200 iterations. RESULTS: Starting from a 69-item questionnaire, a reduced model was developed and included eight knowledge items found to result in the highest accuracy of 62% CI (58-67%). The best prediction accuracy in the full and reduced models was attained by ANN at 66% and 62%, respectively, compared to full and reduced LSM at 40% and 34%, respectively. The average relative increase in accuracy over all in the full and reduced models is 82% and 102%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Using ANN modeling, we can predict salt reduction behaviors with 66% accuracy. The statistical model has been implemented in an online calculator and can be used in clinics to estimate the patient's behavior. This will help implementation in future research to further prove clinical utility of this tool to guide therapeutic salt reduction interventions in high cardiovascular risk individuals.

Consumer knowledge, attitudes and salt-related behavior in the Middle-East: the case of Lebanon.

Sodium intake is high in Lebanon, a country of the Middle East region where rates of cardiovascular diseases are amongst the highest in the world. This study examines salt-related knowledge, attitude and self-reported behaviors amongst adult Lebanese consumers and investigates the association of socio-demographic factors, knowledge and attitudes with salt-related behaviors. Using a multicomponent questionnaire, a cross-sectional study was conducted in nine supermarkets in Beirut, based on systematic random sampling (n = 442). Factors associated with salt-related behaviors were examined by multivariate regression analysis. Specific knowledge and attitude gaps were documented with only 22.6% of participants identifying processed foods as the main source of salt, 55.6% discerning the relationship between salt and sodium, 32.4% recognizing the daily limit of salt intake and 44.7% reporting being concerned about the amount of salt in their diet. The majority of participants reported behavioral practices that increase salt intake with only 38.3% checking for salt label content, 43.7% reporting that their food purchases are influenced by salt content and 38.6% trying to buy low-salt foods. Knowledge, attitudes and older age were found to significantly predict salt-related behaviors. Findings offer valuable insight on salt-related knowledge, attitude and behaviors in a sample of Lebanese consumers and provide key information that could spur the development of evidence-based salt-reduction interventions specific to the Middle East.

Lifetime cumulative exposure to waterpipe smoking is associated with coronary artery disease.

OBJECTIVE: Globally, waterpipe (WP) smoking is becoming a more prevalent form of tobacco consumption. Whilst research so far has demonstrated a significant link between WP use and a number of health outcomes, little is known of its association with heart disease. We examine in this study the association of WP smoking with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODS: A total of 1210 patients, aged 40 years and over and free from smoking-associated illnesses or history of cardiovascular procedures, admitted for coronary angiography at four major hospitals in Lebanon, were included. The extent of CAD was summarized in two ways, firstly as diseased (≥ 50% and ≥ 70% occlusion in at least one main coronary artery) versus non-diseased (entirely normal coronaries), and secondly, as CAD cumulative score based on Duke CAD Prognostic Index. A score of WP-years, capturing intensity and lifetime duration of exposure, was estimated for each individual. RESULTS: Lifetime exposure exceeding 40 WP-years was associated with a threefold significant increase in the odds of having severe stenosis (≥ 70%) compared to non-smokers (OR = 2.94, 95% CI 1.04-8.33) as well as with the CAD Index (ß = 7.835, p-value = 0.027), net of the effect of socio-demographic characteristics, health behaviors and co-morbidity. A dose-response relationship between WP-years and percent stenosis was also established. WP smoking status (never, past and current) did not associate with CAD. CONCLUSIONS: Cumulative exposure to WP smoking is significantly associated with severe CAD. There is a need to monitor WP use among cardiac patients and include this information in their medical charts in the same manner cigarettes smoking is documented. This is likely to increase awareness of the hazards of WP smoking and prompt physicians to target WP tobacco control by providing advice to their patients on WP smoking cessation.