Summary
Scientists have known for some time that people with rheumatoid arthritis have a greater risk of dying from a heart attack, and a new study from Minnesota's famed Mayo Clinic points to a joint inflammation as the main cause for the trend.
"We believe that inflammation is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease," says the study's lead researcher.
While the experts are still unsure of exactly why rheumatoid arthritis's inflammation of large joints may lead to heart attack deaths, they say that issue is under investigation. In the meantime, they say, it's apparent that, keeping a patient's heart attack risk factor to its minimum is a matter of keeping inflammation to its minimum, too.
Original source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050309104857.htm
Details
Mayo Clinic epidemiologists have found that the systemic inflammation characterizing rheumatoid arthritis may be to blame for the increased risk of cardiovascular death in patients with the disease.
"We believe that inflammation is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease among rheumatoid arthritis patients," says Hilal Maradit Kremers, M.D., lead study investigator and research associate in the Mayo Clinic Department of Health Sciences Research.
Rheumatoid arthritis patients have a significantly increased risk of dying of a heart condition if they have swelling in the large joints, rheumatoid vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels), rheumatoid lung disease or a high erythrocyte sedimentation rate (a blood test commonly known as ESR that measures level of inflammation in the body), report the investigators in the March issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism (http://www.rheumatology.org/publications/ar).
The exact means by which the inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis can lead to heart disease is unclear, say the Mayo Clinic investigators, who indicate this is currently under study.
The investigators hypothesize that if the degree of a rheumatoid arthritis patient's inflammation can be closely monitored and kept under strict control, the risk of death by heart condition may decrease.
The study was conducted using the resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project (http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/research/rep).
The researchers collected detailed information about all
study subjects' cardiac events and their cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index and smoking.
They also collected information on indicators of systemic
inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis disease severity, such as rheumatoid factor positivity, ESR, joint swelling, radiographic changes, rheumatoid arthritis nodules, rheumatoid arthritis complications, rheumatoid
arthritis treatments and disease duration.
In addition, the researchers collected information on comorbitities, the presence of additional diseases.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he is well known as the creator of popular downloadable preparedness programs on financial collapse, emergency food storage, wilderness survival and home defense skills. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams created TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
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Friday, April 08, 2005
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