Inflammation, as we know, tends to have no boundaries within the human body. Above all, when it is chronic, it creates a condition that favors a series of phenomena that in some way can jeopardize the normal functioning of organs that are not directly attacked, at least in the first phase of the disease. In this sense, the results of a study published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, which demonstrates how there is a substantial doubling of the probability of suffering a fatal heart attack in over-50s who suffer from diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus or psoriasis, obviously compared to the population that does not have to reckon with these disease.
The study, led by Brittany Weber, a cardio-rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University, looked at data from the Young-Mi registry, which enrolled patients who had a heart attack aged 50 or younger between 2000 and in 2016 and were treated at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, comparing those who suffered from systemic inflammatory diseases with those who did not have such problems. The researchers identified patients with systemic inflammatory diseases and compared them to those without these conditions.
Broken sleep, inflammation and risk to the heart
Of the little more than 2000 subjects involved, 2.5% had an autoimmune inflammatory disease: the majority of them were women. Psoriasis was the most common (64%), followed by lupus (23%), rheumatoid arthritis (9%) and other conditions (4%). Thinking only about psoriasis, according to a study that appeared in Circulation the risk of having an early heart attack in a forty-year-old person suffering from severe psoriasis would be 200 percent higher than that of a peer who does not have to deal with the skin disease. Returning to the study in question, it must be said that in terms of risk factors, apart from autoimmune pathology, a greater risk of hypertension was observed in the group of subjects with these pathologies but no significant alteration in terms of diabetes and cholesterol. The observation lasted just over 11 years and it was seen that the probability of death was higher in subjects with inflammatory diseases. Weber reports that these findings “suggest that the worst long-term survival in young heart attack patients with inflammatory diseases may be related to inflammation compared to other cardiovascular risk factors.”
Early recognition of rheumatic diseases is essential
The research – of great importance on the epidemiological front given that about 2% of the European population deals with problems of this type and consequent changes in the normal balance of the various organs – once again testifies to how inflammation is the “mainspring ”That starts the risks. in this sense, autoimmune diseases, such as those mentioned above, become a sort of negative model in terms of multiple district of inflammatory manifestations. To give a few examples, psoriasis in addition to attacking the skin in some cases also concentrates its effects on the joints, rheumatoid arthritis leads to inflammation of the joints of the hands and feet and in other organ systems. And in systemic lupus erythematosus, the body can attack the skin, joints, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, and lungs. “It is necessary to remind everyone, general practitioners, cardiologists and rheumatologists that those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis or lupus must still be considered at cardiovascular risk, regardless of age and the presence or absence of classic cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia, diabetes , hypertension – remember Roberto Caporali, professor of rheumatology at the University of Milan and director of the department of rheumatology and medical sciences at the Asst Pini-Cio. These pathologies require a more careful monitoring of cardiovascular well-being over time. But above all it is essential to counteract the action of inflammation and this means above all to reach the diagnosis early: unfortunately in rheumatic diseases this goal is often not reached early, with evident impacts for the patient. Early diagnosis also means targeted therapy and therefore the possibility of sending the disease into remission, keeping the focus of systemic inflammation “extinguished” over time “.
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