Metabolic

Cross-sectional metabolic subgroups and 10-year follow-up of cardiometabolic multimorbidity in the UK Biobank

Correlation structure between metabolic variables

The characteristics of the study population are listed in Supplementary Table S2. The mean age was 57 years (SD 8 years), most individuals were overweight (BMI mean 27.4 kg/m2, SD 4.8 kg/m2) and 20,094 (6.1%) individuals died during a mean follow-up of 10.8 years. We investigated 51 metabolic variables (34 biochemical, 15 anthropometric and two blood pressures) that were reduced to 33 SOM inputs based on collinearity (details in Methods, see also Supplementary Figure S3). The final correlation structure is shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1figure 1

Spearman correlations between anthropometric and biochemical features that comprised the training set for the self-organizing map (adjusted for age and sex). Highly collinear variables were collapsed into the principal component score (PC) prior to correlation analysis.

Primer on the self-organizing map

The concept of the SOM is illustrated in Fig. 2. Each participant is represented by their individual preprocessed metabolic profile (Fig. 2A, 33 input dimensions). The Kohonen algorithm16 is applied to project the high-dimensional input data onto the vertical and horizontal coordinates (two-dimensional layout in Fig. 2B). On the scatter plot, proximity between two participants means that their full multivariable input data are similar as well (Fig. 2C). However, scatter plots are cumbersome for large datasets and difficult to interpret in the absence of distinct clusters. The SOM circumvents these challenges by dividing the plot area into districts. To show statistical patterns, each district is colored according to the average value of a single biomarker or, in the case of morbidity, the local prevalence or incidence of a disease (Fig. 2D, E). The connection between proximity on the canvas and similarity of full profile works the same way on the SOM as it does on a scatter plot. Therefore, selecting a region on the SOM is the same as selecting a subgroup of individuals with mutually similar profiles of input data (Fig. 2F).

Figure 2figure 2

Schematic illustration of the subgrouping procedure. We used the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm to project high-dimensional data onto a two-dimensional canvas that is divided into districts (A–C). The data points can be colored based on the observed values ​​of any variable (D). In this study, the statistical weight of regional patterns was encoded in smoothed pseudo-colour representations of the observed values ​​(E). The map colorings were used as visual guides to assign map districts and the participants therein into mutually exclusive subgroups (F).

The technical details of the SOM have been published previously. In particular, we highlight extensive supplementary documents in four earlier papers that introduce the basic mathematical concepts and discuss the differences between textbook examples of clustered data and the nature of clinical cohort data as the motivation behind the SOM framework11,17,18,19. We also recommend the vignette in the Numero R package (URL: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Numero/vignettes/intro.html) as a practical guide on how to construct a SOM.

Metabolic subgroups

IHD is the most common global cause for death20 and causally connected to lipoproteins21. For this reason, we used the patterns of the apolipoprotein B module, triglycerides and the HDL module as the starting point for subgrouping (Fig. 3A, G, M). We identified map regions that captured the characteristic combinations of features for individuals that had the highest apolipoprotein B score (Subgroup I, top-left part of Fig. 3A-F), elevated triglycerides (Subgroups II and III, bottom-left quadrant of Fig 3G-L), and the highest HDL score (Subgroup IV, top part of Fig. 3M-P).

Figure 3figure 3

The SOM subgrouping procedure applied to the UK Biobank. In each plot, the same participants reside in the same district. The colors of the districts indicate the regional deviation from the global mean, with color intensity adjusted according to how much the variable contributed to the structure of the map. The numbers on the districts indicate the smoothed mean Z-score of the participants.

Subgroup I was characterized by the combination of high apolipoprotein B score (Fig. 3A), high systolic blood pressure (Fig. 3B), high rheumatoid factor (Fig. 3C) and adequate glycemic control (Fig. 3D). Biomarkers of kidney disease were not elevated (Fig. 3E, F). The second and third subgroups featured elevated triglycerides (Fig. 3G) and high body fat score (Fig. 3H), however, Subgroup II was characterized by high liver enzymes (Fig. 3I-K) whereas Subgroup III had higher C-reactive protein (Figure 3L). The highest HDL module scores (subgroup IV) were observed together with the highest vitamin D (Fig. 3N) and bilirubin (Fig. 3O) and low estradiol (Fig. 3P, V). These individuals were the leanest (Fig. 3H).

The highest estradiol values ​​were observed on the left side (Subgroup V, Fig. 3P, V) and Subgroup V also showed the highest testosterone in men (Fig. 3W) and sex-hormone binding globulin for both sexes (Fig. 3R). Sex dimorphism was pronounced; Estradiol was fivefold higher in women, and testosterone was tenfold higher in men and we verified that the relative SOM patterns for women under and over the age of 5122 were not disrupted by menopause (Supplementary Figure S4). The map area at the bottom (Subgroup VI) was characterized by high urinary excretion biomarkers without albuminuria (Fig. 3E, S, T) and these individuals had higher insulin-like growth factor Z-scores compared to the neighboring Subgroups III and V ( 3U).

Succinct descriptive labels based on selected biomarkers were assigned to the subgroups for easier reading (Fig. 4). Unadjusted map colorings in physical units are included in Supplementary Figures S5 and S6. Numerical descriptions of the subgroups are available in Supplementary Table S3.

Figure 4figure 4

Mean metabolic profiles for SOM subgroups normalized by population SD. The bars are colored according to the direction and magnitude of the deviation from the population mean. The black stars indicate characteristic features that were selected for simplified naming of the subgroups.

Disease prevalence and incidence by subgroup

The highest prevalence of IHD was observed in subgroup III (Fig. 5A). Diabetes prevalence varied the most across the map with small percentages for subgroups IV and V, but substantially higher in subgroups II and III (Fig. 5B). The pattern for hypertension was close to that of diabetes (Fig. 5C), but there were also individuals in Subgroup I who had hypertension (see also blood pressure in Fig. 4G). The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis, dementia and cancer was higher in subgroup III (Fig. 5D-F). Subgroup IV was associated with the lowest overall burden of disease and was chosen as the control subgroup. The subgroups were similar with respect to age, sex and follow-up time (Fig. 5U-X).

Figure 5figure 5

Comparison of morbidity between the SOM subgroups. Percentage of individuals with a disease at baseline across the map districts (AF). Odds ratios for disease prevalence across subgroups based on logistic regression adjusted for age, sex and assessment center (G–L). Hazard ratios for incident disease or mortality based on Cox regression adjusted for age, sex and assessment center (MT). Maximum follow-up time available across any clinical end-point (X).

Odds and hazard ratios of diseases between the subgroups are shown in Fig. 5G-T and confidence intervals and P-values ​​are available in Supplementary Tables S4 and S5. Subgroup III was associated with the highest prevalence of ischemic heart disease (7.5%, OR = 2.9), hypertension (19.3%, OR = 3.7), rheumatoid arthritis (2.3%, OR = 2.9) and cancer (9.1%, OR = 1.4 ). High incidence was observed for IHD (9.6 per 1000 person years, HR = 2.1) and the highest incidence for rheumatoid arthritis (1.6, HR = 2.53), cancer (12.8, HR = 1.3), stroke (2.6, HR = 1.9) and mortality (13.4, HR = 2.1).

The prevalence of diabetes was the highest in subgroup II at 16.7% (OR = 12.6) and the incidence was 14.3 per 1000 person years (HR = 15.8). The incidence of ischemic heart disease in subgroup II was the same as in subgroup III (9.6 vs. 9.7, P > 0.05). There were no differences in the prevalence of dementia (0.13% vs 0.14%, P > 0.05) or the incidence of dementia (1.4 vs 1.5, P > 0.05) between Subgroups II and III.

Metabolic syndrome and multimorbidity

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) was developed to capture synergistic features associated with high cardiovascular risk23,24. The SOM patterns for MetS classification (NCEP ATP III) are shown in Fig. 6A-F and numerical results are available in Supplementary Table S6. High MetS prevalence was observed in Subgroup II (64.2%) and Subgroup III (57.8%) and the lowest in Subgroup IV (5.7%).

Figure 6figure 6

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) and multimorbidity. MetS was defined according to the NCEP ATP III criteria that include five components (AE, the percentages in the plots indicate the proportion of individuals that satisfy a criterion) and subsequent binary classification for those with ≥ 3 points (F). The participants were divided into those with age ≤ 58 (N = 167.337 or 50.7%) and those with age > 58 (N = 162.571 or 49.3%) to create two equally sized age strata (G). The null model represents the number of multimorbid cases if the co-occurrence of diseases was random. Bars for subgroups include 95% confidence intervals (H–J).

The MetS combines risk factors, but we also investigated the combination of established morbidities. The burden of multimorbidity depends on the frequencies of the diseases in the population: if two diseases become more frequent, the random chance of having both increases. For example, younger individuals have fewer diseases compared to older individuals (Fig. 6G, split by the median age of 58 years). This difference in disease frequencies leads to a difference in multimorbidity by mathematics alone (the null model, see Methods). However, the observed excess beyond the null model (ie enrichment) was greater in younger individuals (Fig. 6H), which means that having one cardiometabolic disease as a young person increases the probability of having another disease more than it would for an older person .

The highest frequency of multimorbidity was observed in subgroups II (prevalence 9.8%, incidence 7.7%) and III (prevalence 9.4%, incidence 6.1%) and the lowest in subgroups IV (2.0%, 1.9%) and V (2.5%, 1.8 %). We defined the enrichment ratio (ER) as the ratio between the observed number of individuals with ≥ 2 diseases versus the number predicted by the null model. Multimorbidity was enriched in all subgroups (Fig. 6D, E and Supplementary Tables S7 and S8), with the highest ratios observed in subgroups IV (prevalent ER = 4.22, incident ER = 4.00), and the lowest in subgroup II (prevalent ER = 1.74, incident ER = 2.01).

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