Relationship of cardiometabolic disease risk factors with age and spinal cord injury duration.

Cardiometabolic disease (CMD) is increased after spinal cord injury (SCI), with an increased number of CMD risk factors that relate to higher mortality. The study objective was to characterize the relationship of age and injury duration with CMD. Retrospective cohort assessment of CMD risks using unbiased recursive partitioning to divide for group comparison: (1) Lowest Risk, (2) Moderate Risk, and (3) Highest Risk based on classification and regression trees predicting CMD diagnosis by age and injury duration. Academic rehabilitation center laboratory. Adults ( NA. CMD risk factors (obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension) using Paralyzed Veterans of America SCI-specific guidelines. Obesity was prevalent (82%) and co-occurred with most other risk factors present. Age increased odds for CMD diagnosis by 1.05 per year ( While SCI is linked to an increased risk of CMD, age is associated with higher CMD risk. Increased SCI duration related to improvement in individual CMD risk factors but did not decrease overall risk for CMD diagnosis. SCI may not uniformly increase CMD risks and highlight a necessary focus on weight management for risk prevention.