People with celiac disease, an autoimmune circumstance marked via way of means of a excessive intolerance to gluten,may also need to speak to a physician approximately approaches to guard their cardiovascular health.
Some of the biggest risk factors for heart disease — including obesity, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol – are less common in people with celiac disease. But a new study suggests that people with celiac disease are still more likely than other individuals to experience medical crises such as heart attack and stroke.
The new study, published January 30 in BMJ Medicine, examined data from nearly half a million adults running in the UK Biobank project.This covered 2,083 individuals who had celiac disorder on the begin of the study, and every other 1,435 who evolved this autoimmune situation at some stage in follow-up. None had a history of heart disease.
After a follow-up length of approximately 12.5 years, the researchers identified more than 40,000 heart attack, stroke and heart disease events known As coronary artery disease, which entails harm or blockages withinside the heart’s fundamental blood vessels. This total included 218 events in people with celiac disease.
Overall, people with celiac disease were 27 percent more likely to experience heart disease events than people without celiac disease, after accounting for a wide range of factors that included eating and exercise habits, pre-existing Factors such as medical conditions and traditional risk factors can affect risk. High blood stress and obesity.
People with celiac disorder need to be conscious that there can be an multiplied danger of coronary heart disorder and need to speak anyconcerns with their doctor,” says lead study author Megan Conroy, a public health researcher at the University of Oxford in England.
People With Celiac Disease Are More Likely to Have Certain Traditional Risk Factors for Heart Disease.
These interactions are especially important, because the study also found that people with celiac disease were at higher risk for heart disease even if they didn’t have traditional risk factors. The risk associated with celiac disease was even more pronounced in people who had few, if any, traditional risk factors for heart disease.
The researchers seemed specially on the American Heart Association’s “Life’s Simple 7” conventional threat factors: smoking,An inactive lifestyle, an dangerous diet, obesity, excessive blood pressure, accelerated ldl cholesterol and excessive blood sugar.
According to these traditional risk factors, more people with celiac disease had ideal heart risk scores than participants without celiac disease — 23 percent versus 14 percent. Similarly, only 5 percent of people with celiac disease were at high risk, compared to 9 percent of others in the study.
Among all low-risk people in the study, individuals with celiac disease were 64 percent more likely to experience events such as heart attack and stroke, compared to individuals without the condition.
Several Autoimmune Conditions Linked to Increased Risk of Heart Disease
The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether celiac disease can directly cause heart disease. Another limitation of the study is that the researchers looked at cardiovascular risk factors only once, when people entered the study, and their risk could have changed later. What’s more, the researchers lacked data on whether participants with celiac disease followed a gluten-free diet.
Still, the study’s findings support previous research suggesting that autoimmune diseases, including celiac disease, may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, says Nathalie Conrad, PhD, an autoimmune disease researcher at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Huh. Not included in the new study.
For example, Dr. Conrad led a study published in August 2022 in the journal Lancet, which found an association between autoimmune diseases and a 56 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease events.
“The findings of this new study suggest that the excess cardiovascular risk in celiac disease cannot be explained by traditional heart disease risk factors alone,” says Conrad.
What Should People With Celiac Disease Do in Light of These Findings?
Conrad says some doctors may more aggressively treat traditional risk factors, such as high blood pressure, in people with celiac disease to reduce their cardiovascular disease risk. Drugs that manage inflammation in people with autoimmune diseases may also protect the heart and blood vessels, but more research is still needed to examine this option, Conrad says.
There are no specific prevention measures for patients with autoimmune conditions or celiac disease,” says Conrad. “I’m sure it will come. But for now, the best option will be for patients to stick to normal screening for traditional heart disease risk factors and follow preventive measures.