Autoimmune diseases and atherothrombotic risk

Clinical investigators have long observed that patients with rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, and psoriasis have increased rates of incident cardiovascular disease, often a decade earlier than among healthy individuals in the general population. 1 Solomon DH Karlson EW Rimm EB et al. Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in women diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Circulation. 2003; 107: 1303-1307 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1058) Google Scholar , 2 England BR Thiele GM Anderson DR Mikuls TR Increased cardiovascular risk in rheumatoid arthritis: mechanisms and implications. BMJ. 2018; 361k1036 PubMed Google Scholar For example, psoriasis, a common T-helper cell type 1/17 immunological disorder, confers an increased risk of myocardial infarction over the life span with the greatest relative increase in risk among those with severe disease in their 30s and 40s. 3 Gelfand JM Neimann AL Shin DB Wang X Margolis DJ Troxel AB Risk of myocardial infarction in patients with psoriasis. JAMA. 2006; 296: 1735-1741 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1510) Google Scholar Yet, to date, most studies of chronic inflammatory disorders and cardiovascular risk have focused on one disease entity at a time and used sampling techniques of moderate sample size. Autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular risk: a population-based study on 19 autoimmune diseases and 12 cardiovascular diseases in 22 million individuals in the UKThese findings warrant targeted cardiovascular prevention measures, in particular in younger patients with autoimmune diseases, and further research into pathophysiological mechanisms underlying these complications. Full-Text PDF