New syndrome links heart disease to obesity, diabetes and kidney disease

The American Heart Association has identified a new medical condition linking obesity, diabetes, heart and kidney diseases.

In an advisory release issued Monday, the AHA says CKM — cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome — may be the key to understanding the risks posed by cardiovascular disease, which caused nearly 700,000 deaths in 2021, according to the CDC.

“We now have several therapies that prevent both worsening kidney disease and heart disease,” explained Chiadi E. Ndumele, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., FAHA, writing committee chair and an associate professor of medicine and director of obesity and cardiometabolic research in the division of cardiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “The advisory provides guidance for health care professionals about how and when to use those therapies, and for the medical community and general public about the best ways to prevent and manage CKM syndrome.”

The study revealed that those most at risk for cardiovascular disease often show signs of CKM much earlier. CKM “affects nearly every major organ in the body,” said the study.

The development of new medications necessary to treat the symptoms of CKM has decreased cardiovascular events and offered doctors insights into the interactions between various organs.

“It’s been eye-opening,” Taub told NBC News. CKM takes into account “what I call organ cross-talk, in which they are interacting with each other very intricately in the body.”

According to the outlet, “More than 90% of adults fall on the CKM spectrum, Ndumele estimated, driven mainly by record levels of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in adults and children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 41.9% of adults and 19.7% of children in the U.S. are obese. More than 37 million adults have diabetes.”