Obesity's Impact on Pulmonary Hypertension Progression: A Cohort Study of Body Composition Metrics in UAE Population

BackgroundObesity is recognized as a major public health concern in UAE that significantly contributes to complications of obesity-induced metabolic and cardiac stress particularly pulmonary hypertension (PH). This study explored the relationship between obesity and body composition changes to address the role of visceral fat and sex differences using a combination of real and simulated data. MethodsA cohort of 500 participants was analyzed, categorized BMI (normal weight, overweight, obese I-III) with echocardiographic parameters including pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP), right ventricular size, and body composition metrics were collected five-year period (2019-2024). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to assess the time onset of PH adverse events as the primary outcome. The influence of age and gender with metrics alteration such as muscle and fat mass, on pulmonary issues was evaluated through statistical models using IBM SPSS Statistics version 2.0. ResultsThe study identified Obese Class III men 45-age-group, who revealed the highest incidence of PH (60%) respectively. Longitudinal analysis showed that BMI and visceral fat distribution are the strongest predictors of PH severity which causes right ventricular remodeling, indicating that specific fat distribution worsens the PH outcomes. ConclusionObesity plays a critical role in accelerating the progression of mechanistic fat distribution. The study highlights monitoring body composition rather than relying only on BMI could enhance the importance of PH obese patients intervention. These findings provide insight into tailoring the obesity-PH linkage approach to mitigate improvements in obese patients.