{"id":40803,"date":"2014-01-06T16:45:23","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T21:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=voices&p=40803"},"modified":"2014-01-06T16:46:42","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T21:46:42","slug":"age-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2014\/01\/06\/age-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Old for Your Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent paper published in <\/a>Circulation<\/a>\u00a0concluded that visible age-related signs\u00a0\u2014 male pattern baldness, earlobe crease, and xanthelasmata <\/em>\u2014<\/em> were\u00a0associated with increased risk of coronary disease independent of chronological age and other cardiovascular risk factors. Study authors Mette Christoffersen and\u00a0Anne Tybjaerg-Hansen answer questions from CardioExchange Editor-in-Chief Harlan Krumholz about their findings.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Krumholz: Your findings are quite interesting. Do you think that these findings should be sought on every patient?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christoffersen and Tybjaerg-Hansen:<\/em><\/strong> Yes, this is very easy information to obtain. The data show that patients who look older than their chronological age based on these signs are more likely to be in poor cardiovascular health, compared with patients who appear to be their actual age.<\/p>\n

Krumholz: Do you think that these findings should be part of cardiovascular risk calculators?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christoffersen and Tybjaerg-Hansen:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0No, probably not. However, if you have one or more of these signs, other risk factors for cardiovascular disease should be evaluated carefully.<\/p>\n

Krumholz: What do you think is the mechanism of this association?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christoffersen and Tybjaerg-Hansen:<\/em><\/strong> This is not known, therefore, the following information is speculation: Regarding male pattern baldness and vascular disease, free testosterone has been shown to act both on the hair follicle and on the vascular wall, leading to both male pattern baldness and proliferation of smooth muscle cells \u2014 a key event in the formation of the atherosclerotic plaque.<\/p>\n

Possible explanations for the increased risk of ischemic heart disease associated with the presence of earlobe crease and xanthelasmata may be altered characteristics of the connective tissue in these individuals reflected both in the dermis (skin) and in the arterial intima (vessel wall) \u2014 i.e., an increased propensity to deposit cholesterol in these tissues. The study shows that the presence of xanthelasmata is not explained by the high cholesterol alone.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>

Male Pattern Baldness<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>

Male Pattern Baldness<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>

Earlobe Crease<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a>

Xanthelasma<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mette Christoffersen and Anne Tybjaerg-Hansen discuss their finding that visible age-related signs are associated with increased risk of coronary disease independent of chronological age and other CV risk factors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[2129,2128,981],"class_list":["post-40803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-earlobe-crease","tag-male-pattern-baldness","tag-xanthelasmata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40803","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\/892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}