Table Info

Table 1.

Baseline clinical and laboratory characteristics of study population dichotomized by incident reduced EF

Variable	Normal EF (n = 643)	Reduced EF (n = 37)	P
Age (years)	65.8 ± 7.0	64.9 ± 6.4	0.440
Sex (% women)	45.9	27.8	0.038
Ethnicity (% Caucasian)	83.5	86.5	0.743
Systolic BP (mmHg)	174 ± 21	169 ± 23	0.236
Diastolic BP (mmHg)	95 ± 12	96 ± 10	0.585
Heart rate (beats/min)	67.4 ± 11.6	67.0 ± 13.8	0.870
Body mass index (kg/m²)	27.1 ± 4.1	28.0 ± 4.5	0.258
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (%)	9.3%	10.8%	0.776
History of COPD (%)	2.5%	2.7%	0.935
History of atrial fibrillation (%)	2.2%	4.4%	0.214
Smoking (%)	20.4	24.3	0.535
Serum creatinine (μmol/L)	88.8 ± 22.8	90.9 ± 14.2	0.413
Fasting glucose (mmol/L)	5.9 ± 2.3	6.5 ± 3.3	0.260
Total cholesterol (mmol/L)	6.0 ± 1.1	6.1 ± 1.1	0.596
HDL-cholesterol (mmol/L)	1.6 ± 0.5	1.6 ± 0.5	0.790
Serum Na⁺ (mmol/L)	140.2 ± 2.3	140.5 ± 2.2	0.362
Serum K⁺ (mmol/L)	4.2 ± 0.4	4.1 ± 0.4	0.690
Treatment arm (% losartan)	51	59	0.315

BP: blood pressure; COPD: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; HDL: high-density lipoprotein

Declarations

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the echo investigators who participated in the LIFE study.

Author contributions

MC, GPA, GdS and RBD contributed to the conception and design of this LIFE echocardiographic sub-study. MC, GPA and KW performed the statistical analyses. MC wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version.

Conflicts of interest

Sverre E. Kjeldsen has received ad-hoc lecture honoraria within the past 3 years from Getz, Merck Healthcare KGaA, Sanofi-Aventis and Vector-Intas. The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

The LIFE study including the LIFE echocardiographic sub-study was approved by the relevant ethical committees in all countries with the participating 945 clinical centers. This manuscript complies with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to participate

Written informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (RBD) upon dire need.

Funding

Merck & Co., Inc. supported the LIFE study with an unrestricted grant from 1993. Merck had a non-voting member of the Steering Committee, which designed the study and wrote the protocol. Merck did monitoring, and data accumulated in a Merck database until study end in 2002. Merck provided the study steering committee with free access to blinded data until 2002 and then un-blinded data after the database was cleared for queries and frozen. The steering committee including a committee statistician validated independently the main outcomes. The steering committee has always been free to analyze and interpret the data, make decisions to publish and write the papers. Merck has not had any formal role after 2002 except for sporadically providing expert statistical assistance.

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