{
  "abstract": "Background: Practical markers for identifying individuals at risk of cardiac conduction disorders (CCDs) before overt disease are limited. Physical frailty reflects reduced physiological reserve and may capture vulnerability beyond chronological age and individual cardiometabolic factors. Herein, we investigated the association of physical frailty with incident CCD in the UK Biobank cohort.\n\nMethods: We included 423,162 participants with data for a modified Fried frailty phenotype and linked health-record follow-up after excluding those with cardiovascular disease, CCDs, or pacemaker implantation at baseline. Participants were classified as non-frail, prefrail, or frail. The primary outcome was incident CCD, and the secondary outcomes were severe conduction block and left bundle branch or fascicular block. Cox proportional hazards models estimated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).\n\nResults: Overall, 58.2% of participants were non-frail, 38.5% were prefrail, and 3.3% were frail; 18,067 incident CCD events occurred during the follow-up. Compared with participants who were non-frail, participants who were prefrail and frail were at higher risks of CCDs after multivariable adjustment [HR, 1.23 (95% CI, 1.19–1.27) and HR, 1.71 (95% CI, 1.60–1.83), respectively; P for trend <0.01]. The corresponding HRs were 1.13 (95% CI, 1.09–1.18) and 1.44 (95% CI, 1.32–1.59) for severe conduction block and were 1.24 (95% CI, 1.17–1.32) and 1.61 (95% CI, 1.43–1.81) for left bundle branch or fascicular block.\n\nConclusions: Physical frailty was associated with graded increases in incident CCD and related conduction outcomes, with excess risk evident at the prefrailty stage. Frailty assessment may help identify individuals with increased susceptibility, although the observational design does not establish causality or demonstrate that modifying frailty would reduce risk.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Cardiology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine",
    "Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Intervention and Precision Medicine",
    "Engineering Research Center for Cardiovascular Innovative Devices of Zhejiang Province",
    "MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
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        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Qian Tang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Jingting Lyv"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Chengfeng Li"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Meihui Wang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Guosheng Fu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Yao Wang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Lu Yu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e4fte5xg6qeh7.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3389/fcvm.2026.1967667",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13724336/?tool=EBI",
  "id": "e4fte5xg6qeh7",
  "issns": [
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  "landing_url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2026.1967667/full",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
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    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2717|Frailty in Older Adults"
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  "openalex": "W7222945840",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2026.1967667/pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13724336",
  "pmid": "42973515",
  "published": "2026-10-19",
  "publisher": "Frontiers Media SA",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e4fte5xg6qeh7.ris",
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  "subjects": [
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      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "issn:2297-055X",
      "subfield": "cardiovascular"
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  "title": "Association of physical frailty with cardiac conduction disorder events in the UK Biobank",
  "title_text": "Association of physical frailty with cardiac conduction disorder events in the UK Biobank",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T12:20:51Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e4fte5xg6qeh7",
  "venue": "Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine",
  "versions": []
}