Osteoporosis
linked to heart disease
Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:11 AM ET
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) -
People with the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis are at
increased risk for having coronary artery disease (CAD), in
which plaque build-up starves the heart of its blood supply, investigators
in Michigan report. In fact, osteoporosis is a stronger factor
than some traditional risk markers for CAD.
"A previous study showed that
women with osteoporosis have more strokes and cardiovascular
events, such as congestive heart failure and chest pain," lead
author Dr. Pamela A. Marcovitz told Reuters Health. "Also, a
radiologist had published a study showing they have higher
coronary calcium scores, implying that they have more coronary
disease as well."
"But no one had looked at
catheterization results, which is the gold standard, to sort out
this issue." With catheterization, doctors inject special
contrast material into the body to create an "angiogram" that
allows direct visualization of the coronary arteries to
determine if blockage is present.
Marcovitz, from William Beaumont
Hospital in Royal Oak, and her associates identified 183 women
and 26 men who underwent bone testing and catheterization within
the same 12-month period between 1999 and 2002. Clinically
significant CAD was documented in more than half of the
patients.
Patients with CAD were more likely
to have brittle bones, the investigators report in the American
Journal of Cardiology. The association was even stronger for
those with osteoporosis.
Moreover, after accounting for
traditional risk factors, osteoporosis remained a significant
predictor of CAD: patients with osteoporosis were nearly six
times more likely to have CAD than those without osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis was a stronger risk factor for CAD than high blood
sugar levels, high blood pressure, or a family history of early
CAD.
So how might osteoporosis lead to
CAD? No one knows for sure, but cells that cause breakdown of
bones, known as osteoclasts, have also been shown to stimulate
calcium build-up in arteries, which may contribute to plaque
build-up.
The results suggest that "perhaps
we should be screening women with (brittle bones) for heart
disease," Marcovitz commented, "and maybe we should be treating
(brittle bones) more aggressively to see if CAD is improved."
SOURCE: American Journal of
Cardiology, October 15, 2005.
