---
type: source
title: "2025 ACC Scientific Statement on the Management of Obesity in Adults With Heart Failure"
author: "American College of Cardiology (JACC)"
url: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2025.05.008
date: 2025-06-13
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: scientific-statement
status: processed
processed_by: vida
processed_date: 2026-04-11
priority: high
tags: [ACC, heart-failure, HFpEF, obesity, GLP-1, semaglutide, tirzepatide, sarcopenia, clinical-guidance, 2025]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

2025 ACC Scientific Statement on management of obesity in adults with HF, published in JACC June 13, 2025. First major cardiology society statement addressing anti-obesity medications in the HF context.

**HFpEF and obesity prevalence:**
- Obesity increases HF risk 2–6x regardless of sex, with stronger association with incident HFpEF than HFrEF
- In Nationwide Inpatient Sample (2018): obesity in 23.2% of HFrEF hospitalizations and 32.8% of HFpEF hospitalizations
- US HF prevalence: ~6.9M in 2024, projected 11.4M by 2050

**GLP-1 recommendations for HFpEF:**
- GLP-1RAs (semaglutide) and GLP-1/GIP dual agonist (tirzepatide) have highest efficacy among FDA-approved AOMs
- STEP-HFpEF program (1,145 patients, BMI ≥30, EF ≥45%) and SUMMIT trial (731 patients, tirzepatide) showed improvements in symptoms and functional capacity
- CAVEAT: "Insufficient evidence exists to confidently conclude that semaglutide and tirzepatide reduce HF events in individuals with HFpEF and obesity" — symptom and functional improvement shown; mortality/hospitalization endpoint uncertainty remains
- GLP-1 safety NOT established for HFrEF

**Sarcopenia/lean mass considerations:**
- Higher BMI may reflect greater lean mass (associated with improved outcomes)
- Sarcopenia and low muscle mass linked to poorer functional status and increased mortality REGARDLESS of weight
- Statement acknowledges the lean mass loss concern without providing specific protein or monitoring thresholds

**Population context:**
- Obesity prevalence projected to reach 60.6% by 2050
- HF prevalence rising in parallel

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the American College of Cardiology's official position on using anti-obesity drugs in HF patients. It's the highest-level clinical guidance and it contains important hedging: GLP-1s improve symptoms and function in obese HFpEF, but the mortality/hospitalization endpoint evidence is still insufficient. This is more cautious than the 40% reduction figure from the pooled STEP-HFpEF analysis — the statement distinguishes symptom improvement (established) from outcomes improvement (uncertain).

**What surprised me:** The ACC's caution on the mortality/hospitalization endpoint. The Session 19 and 20 archives contain strong language about 40% HF hospitalization/mortality reduction — but the ACC's formal statement in June 2025 says the evidence is "insufficient to confidently conclude" the same. This may reflect different interpretation of the same evidence, or the ACC being more conservative pending larger trials. This is a potential tension worth flagging.

**What I expected but didn't find:** More specific guidance on sarcopenia monitoring or protein supplementation. The statement acknowledges sarcopenia risk but doesn't provide the concrete monitoring protocols that the OMA/ASN/ACLM advisory does.

**KB connections:**
- Provides official framing for the HFpEF + GLP-1 evidence base (Session 20 active thread)
- The ACC's more cautious framing vs. the STEP-HFpEF pooled analysis (40% reduction) is a genuine tension worth examining
- Connects to malnutrition/sarcopenia caution paper (archived separately)

**Extraction hints:**
- The ACC's institutional hedging ("insufficient evidence to conclude mortality/hospitalization reduction") vs. the clinical trial evidence language ("40% reduction in HF hospitalization/mortality") could be a divergence candidate
- Claim candidate: "The ACC 2025 Scientific Statement distinguishes GLP-1 symptom/functional benefits in obese HFpEF (established) from mortality/hospitalization reduction (uncertain) — a more conservative interpretation than the pooled STEP-HFpEF analysis showing 40% event reduction"
- The 32.8% obesity prevalence in HFpEF hospitalizations is a useful denominator for the HFpEF penetration math (Session 20 active thread)

**Context:** Published alongside 2025 ACC Expert Consensus Statement on Medical Weight Management for Cardiovascular Health (June 2025) — a companion document for primary/preventive cardiology.

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: Session 20 active thread on GLP-1 + HFpEF penetration and the scope of the clinical benefit
WHY ARCHIVED: Provides the authoritative cardiology society framing that hedges on the mortality/hospitalization endpoint — creating a tension with the stronger language in STEP-HFpEF program summaries
EXTRACTION HINT: The distinction between symptom improvement (established) and mortality/hospitalization reduction (uncertain) is the key clinical nuance the KB currently lacks in its HFpEF coverage
