New research suggests that the risk of dying from heart failure is increased in people who also have the metabolic syndrome.

In heart failure, the organ becomes too weak to pump blood efficiently through a person’s body, leading to fatigue, swelling of the legs, and difficulty breathing.

The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors for heart disease and diabetes such as high blood pressure, fat accumulation around the waist, low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol, high levels of harmful blood fats called triglycerides, and high blood sugar.

“Metabolic syndrome is a risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and heart failure, but little is known about the impact of metabolic syndrome in patients who already have heart failure,” Dr. Leonardo Tamariz and colleagues note in the journal, Clinical Cardiology.

To investigate, Tamariz, from the University of Miami in Florida, and his team analyzed data for 865 individuals enrolled in a heart failure disease management program in a rural public hospital that primarily serves an indigent population. Forty percent of them had metabolic syndrome.

During an average follow-up of 2.6 years, far more patients with metabolic syndrome died than those without metabolic syndrome (24% vs 16%).

After adjusting for a variety of potentially confounding factors, people with heart failure and metabolic syndrome had a 50% greater risk of dying than patients with heart failure only.

Doctors treating patients with heart failure “need to address the current metabolic syndrome epidemic in heart failure,” the investigators conclude.

SOURCE: Clinical Cardiology, June 2009.