Approach to the cardiometabolic continuum. Narrative description

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ACVD) is the major adverse outcome in the evolution of several metabolic conditions. For around several decades, the cardiovascular continuum has been used as a fantastic tool to explain the evolution of ACVD from the onset of risk factor, to clinical outcomes, and to death. Nowadays, metabolic diseases such as obesity, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes have been increasing enough to become serious public health problems and notorious contributors to the morbidity and mortality rates due to ACVD, including arterial hypertension. Other conditions seem to increase the list, such as: physical inactivity with its metabolic cluster; sarcopenia, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Moreover, obesity in childhood has been growing at an exponential rate so the excess of adiposity in children and adolescents will translate into an excess of cardiometabolic risk in adults. Several longitudinal studies confirm the strong association of paediatric obesity with the persistence of adult obesity, as well as the future development of cardiometabolic conditions, such as prediabetes, diabetes, obesity, increased risk of arterial hypertension, and ACVD. Therefore, it is time to conceptualise the cardiometabolic continuum as a tool of an early, wider and preventive intervention in order to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to ACVD. (C) 2020 Sociedad Espanola de Arteriosclerosis. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved.