New Study Links Chronic Inflammation and Atherosclerosis—Can Calcification be the Real Link?

Chronic Inflammation and Atherosclerosis: more data indicates link to calcification.

Date:   6/7/2007 8:55:28 AM   ( 17 y ) ... viewed 3162 times

Per previous blogs, research has shown how a number of calcific diseases, such as, Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, and other inflammatory rheumatic diseases are associated with a high rate of death from heart disease. One explanation is a greater susceptibility to atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. Although atherosclerosis is linked to inflammation in healthy individuals as well, the mechanism of inflammation and the reason for accelerated atherosclerosis in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease remains unclear. Does atherosclerosis result from systemic inflammation, a hallmark of these rheumatic diseases, or from local inflammation of vessels, or from pathologic calcification which may initiate the inflammatory response?

Recently, a team of researchers from Norway and the United States, affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, focused on the aortas of recent recipients of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, comparing biopsy specimens from patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease to those from patients without it. Their study, presented in the June 2007 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, affirms inflammatory rheumatic disease as an independent predictor of vessel wall inflammation. The vascular inflammation might be a factor that promotes atherosclerosis and the formation of aneurysms. However, the unanswered question remains…what causes vascular inflammation?

Article: "Inflammatory Rheumatic Disease and Smoking Predict Aortic Inflammation: A Controlled Study of Biopsy Specimens Obtained at Coronary Artery Surgery," Ivana Hollan, et al., Arthritis & Rheumatism, June 2007; (DOI: 10.1002/art.22690).

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