UK Biobank study links chronic inflammatory disorders and arterial stiffness

Takeaway

• Arterial stiffness index increased in patients diagnosed with chronic inflammation disorder (ID) including rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.
• An increasing trend was observed for arterial stiffness with higher tertiles of different inflammatory biomarkers.
• ID biomarkers might have a possible role in discriminating patients with IDs into different risk categories for future cardiovascular diseases.

Why this matters

• Existing evidence supports addition of measures of inflammatory biomarkers to traditional cardiovascular risk scores for improved predictive values.
• However, authors call for further confirmation from prospective studies.

Study design

• Study evaluated 171,125 adults (age, 40-69 years) from UK Biobank who were free from cardiovascular diseases.
• 5976 adults were diagnosed with an ID, whereas 165,149 were diagnosed without.
• Funding: None disclosed.

Key results

• Chronic IDs vs no IDs was associated with a 14% increase in mean arterial stiffness (adjusted exponentiated coefficient [β], 1.14; P=.002).
• Arterial stiffness increased from 11% (P=.162) in the first tertile to 17% (P=.029) in second and 21% (P=.009) in third tertile of leucocyte count.
• Arterial stiffness increased within rheumatoid arthritis (β, 1.18; P=.044) and psoriasis (β, 1.21; P=.016), but not IBDs (β, 1.14; P=.091).

Limitations

• Risk for misclassification bias as UK Biobank data are based on self-reported chronic IDs.