Inflammatory bowel disease may increase risk of heart failure
Last reviewed: 14.06.2024
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Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with a small increased risk of heart failure for up to 20 years after diagnosis, according to a comprehensive study conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and published in the European Heart Journal.
Researchers analyzed the risk of heart failure in more than 80,000 patients with inflammatory bowel diseases - Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis or unspecified IBD - compared with 400,000 people from the general population in the ESPRESSO study.
The results show that people with IBD have a 19% increased risk of developing heart failure up to 20 years after diagnosis. This corresponds to one additional case of heart failure per 130 patients with IBD over those 20 years, and the increase in risk was observed regardless of the type of IBD. The greatest risk of heart failure was seen in older patients, people with low levels of education, and people with pre-existing cardiovascular disease at the time of IBD diagnosis.
"Both healthcare providers and patients should be aware of this increased risk, and it is important that cardiovascular health is closely monitored," says study first author Jiangwei Song, a researcher at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet. "We hope the results will raise awareness among health care providers of the increased risk of heart failure in people with IBD and contribute to the creation of new guidelines for the management of cardiovascular disease in patients with IBD."
The researchers also analyzed the risk of heart failure in patients with IBD compared with their siblings without IBD. In these analyses, the risk increased by 10%, suggesting that genetic and early environmental factors shared among family members may play a role.
“We do not know whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship, but we will continue to investigate genetic factors and the role of IBD medications and disease activity in increasing the risk of heart failure,” says senior study author Professor Jonas F. Ludvigsson from the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet.
The study was carried out in collaboration with researchers from Örebro University, the University of Gothenburg and Uppsala University in Sweden.