{"id":12733,"date":"2011-10-24T19:36:38","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T23:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&p=12733"},"modified":"2011-10-24T19:36:38","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T23:36:38","slug":"new-study-proposes-possible-causative-role-for-hpv-in-atherosclerosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2011\/10\/24\/new-study-proposes-possible-causative-role-for-hpv-in-atherosclerosis\/","title":{"rendered":"New Study Proposes Possible Causative Role for HPV in Atherosclerosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human papillomavirus (HPV) may play a role in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hus-Ko Kuo and Ken Fujise speculated that HPV may be a risk factor for\u00a0CVD because it inactivates the tumor-suppressor protein p53, which plays a regulatory role in atherosclerosis. They analyzed data from 2450 women aged 20 to 59, 60 of whom reported having coronary artery disease.\u00a0 About 47% of all the women were HPV-positive, as assessed by a DNA analysis of self-collected vaginal swab specimens.<\/p>\n

Among the women with CVD, 39 were HPV-positive while 21 were negative. After adjusting for age and race, the investigators found that HPV elevated the risk for CVD by two-and-a-half times. This increase remained significant when other risk factors were also included in the analysis. Women with cancer-associated HPV types had an even higher risk elevation.<\/p>\n

The authors write that to the best of their knowledge there has been “no previous report on the association between HPV and CVD.”<\/p>\n

The article is accompanied by an editorial written by Joseph Muhlestein<\/a>, who more than a decade ago first proposed that a different infectious agent, Chlamydia pneumoniae<\/em>, might play a causative role in CVD. He writes that<\/p>\n

…the present article adds another important infectious candidate to the list of agents associated with the development, progression, or destabilization of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. This finding re-emphasizes the potential roles that a variety of chronic infectious agents may play in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Despite setbacks experienced in a number of clinical trials designed to treat patients based on the \u201cinfectious hypothesis,\u201d it still lives on, and slowly, progress is being made.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“In the end,” he concludes, “the infectious hypothesis of atherosclerosis may still pan out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human papillomavirus (HPV) may play a role in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Hus-Ko Kuo and Ken Fujise speculated that HPV may be a risk factor for\u00a0CVD because it inactivates the tumor-suppressor protein p53, which plays a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[1023,1024],"class_list":["post-12733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-hpv","tag-human-papillomavirus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}