Table Info

Table 1.

Baseline characteristics in groups of patients by initial event, atrial fibrillation, heart failure or both

Variable	Incident AF (n = 625)^*	Incident HF (n = 191)^**	AF and HF on same day (n = 21)
Age (years)	69.8 ± 6.5	70.4 ± 6.4	70.3 ± 7.8
Women, n (%)	310 (49.6)	89 (46.6)	10 (47.6)
Systolic blood pressure (mmHg)^#	152 ± 21	154 ± 23	138 ± 22
Diastolic blood pressure (mmHg)^#	84 ± 11	85 ± 13	79 ± 13
Heart rate (beats/min)^#	72 ± 14	74 ± 13	75 ± 20
Body mass index (kg/m²)	27.8 ± 4.8	28.4 ± 5.2	30.3 ± 7.2
Serum creatinine (μmol/L)	87 ± 22	95 ± 24	82.7 ± 16.0
Total cholesterol (mmol/L)	6.0 ± 1.1	5.9 ± 1.2	5.6 ± 1.3
HDL cholesterol (mmol/L)	1.5 ± 0.4	1.4 ± 0.4	1.4 ± 0.5
Plasma glucose (mmol/L)	6.0 ± 2.1	6.8 ± 3.6	6.1 ± 2.0
Cornell voltage–duration product (mV∙ms)^#	2,781 ± 1,111	3,460 ± 1,708	2,964 ± 1,402
Sokolow–Lyon voltage (mV)^#	31.4 ± 11.6	32.7 ± 11.1	35.2 ± 12.6
QRS-duration (ms)^#	103 ± 20	115 ± 26	113 ± 22
Prior myocardial infarction, n (%)^#	22 (3.5)	16 (8.4)	0
Diabetes, n (%)	83 (13)	51 (27)	4 (19)
Black race, n (%)	20 (3)	21 (11)	3 (14)
Randomized to atenolol, n (%)	280 (45)	94 (49)	12 (57)

Without concurrent or prior heart failure; ** without concurrent or prior atrial fibrillation; # measured at day of event

Declarations

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the 945 clinical centers who participated in the LIFE study.

Author contributions

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

Conflicts of interest

Lars Køber has received speakers’ honorarium from Novo, Novartis, AstraZeneca and Boehringer. Sverre E. Kjeldsen has received ad-hoc lecture honoraria within the past 3 years from Getz Pharma, Merck Healthcare KGaA, Sanofi-Aventis and Vector-Intas. The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Ethical committees for all participating 945 clinical centers approved the LIFE study. 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 (PMO) 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 accumulated data 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.

Copyright

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