Cardiovascular Disease Risk Is Increased By Autoimmune Conditions

Sep, 2022 - By WMR

According to the study, those with autoimmune diseases are far more likely than those without them to acquire cardiovascular disease.

The results of a thorough epidemiological analysis into possible links between 19 of the most common autoimmune illnesses and cardiovascular disease were presented by an international research team under the direction of KU Leuven at the European Society of Cardiology. The study's findings indicate that people with autoimmune diseases are much more likely than non-autoimmune individuals to suffer cardiovascular disease. Comparable to type 2 diabetes, an established risk factor for cardiovascular disease, this increased risk is related to cardiovascular disease. The study shows for the first time that cardiovascular risks affect autoimmune illness as a group of disorders rather than individual diseases.

Traditional cardiovascular risk factors including socioeconomic status, BMI, age, sex, smoking, type 2 diabetes and cholesterol, could not adequately account for the elevated risk, either. Patients who had one or more autoimmune diseases had an average 1.56 times higher risk of having cardiovascular disease than patients without autoimmune diseases.

An enormous database of anonymized patient data from roughly one-fifth of the current U.K. population was used for the study, which integrated electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research datalink in the United Kingdom. The researchers compiled a cohort of individuals having a recent diagnosis of any one of the 19 autoimmune illnesses from 22 million medical records. Next, they compared the incidence of 12 cardiovascular events to a matched control group throughout the course of the following years, using previously unheard-of resolution made feasible by the enormous scale of the information.

The main theory is that autoimmune disorders, which include persistent and systemic inflammation as a common factor, can cause a variety of cardiovascular diseases. Patients' cardiovascular risk is also likely to be influenced by how an autoimmune condition affects connective tissues, small blood arteries, and cardiomyocytes, as well as perhaps some of the typical treatments for autoimmunity. There should be a comprehensive investigation into this investigation.