{"id":620068,"date":"2026-10-04T05:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T05:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620068\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T05:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T05:58:23","slug":"chronic-inflammation-linked-to-silent-heart-changes-and-43-higher-cardiovascular-event-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620068\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronic inflammation linked to silent heart changes and 43% higher cardiovascular event risk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers studied inflammatory markers and cardiovascular outcomes across nearly 488,000 UK Biobank participants.People with the highest levels of chronic inflammation had a 43% higher risk of major cardiovascular events than those with the lowest levels.The study linked inflammation with subtle changes to heart structure before obvious cardiovascular disease appears.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"14269\" data-end=\"14448\">Inflammation may help connect some of the biggest cardiovascular risk factors \u2013 including excess abdominal fat, smoking and psychological distress \u2013 with changes inside the heart.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"14450\" data-end=\"14548\">Researchers from Imperial College London analysed data from up to 488,079 UK Biobank participants.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"14550\" data-end=\"14785\">They used a blood marker called GlycA to estimate chronic systemic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.diabetes.co.uk\/what-is-inflammation.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inflammation<\/a>, then combined this with heart MRI scans, protein measurements, genetic data and long-term cardiovascular outcomes.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"14787\" data-end=\"14950\">Higher levels of inflammation were linked with smaller volumes in the heart\u2019s main pumping chamber, reduced stroke volume and compensatory increases in heart rate.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"14952\" data-end=\"15105\">These are subtle structural and functional changes that can occur before someone is diagnosed with heart failure.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15107\" data-end=\"15163\">The difference in longer-term risk was also substantial.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15165\" data-end=\"15317\">Participants in the highest fifth for GlycA had a 43% higher adjusted risk of a major cardiovascular event compared with people in the lowest fifth.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15319\" data-end=\"15424\">These events included outcomes such as heart attacks and strokes.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15426\" data-end=\"15615\">Researchers also identified inflammatory proteins involving pathways such as interleukin-1 and tumour necrosis factor that may partly connect systemic inflammation with cardiac remodelling.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15617\" data-end=\"15768\">Among the strongest factors associated with higher inflammation were trunk fat, current smoking, psychological distress and lower socioeconomic status.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15770\" data-end=\"15948\">Genetic susceptibility also appeared to influence how strongly environmental factors translated into inflammation and cardiovascular risk.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15950\" data-end=\"15990\">But this remains observational research.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"15992\" data-end=\"16127\">It does not show that reducing a GlycA result itself would prevent a heart attack, and GlycA is not a standard NHS diabetes blood test.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16129\" data-end=\"16229\">Nor should the results be interpreted as saying psychological distress directly \u201cdamages the heart\u201d.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16231\" data-end=\"16292\">The relationships are complex and may run in both directions.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16294\" data-end=\"16340\">The diabetes relevance is nevertheless strong.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16342\" data-end=\"16482\">People with diabetes already face an increased cardiovascular risk, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.diabetes.co.uk\/diabetes-and-metabolic-syndrome.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">metabolic disease<\/a> is closely tied to chronic low-grade inflammation.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16484\" data-end=\"16659\">The findings add another reason to focus on the fundamentals that can be changed: smoking, central obesity, physical activity, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose control.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\" data-start=\"16661\" data-end=\"16786\">They also reinforce that social and psychological health cannot always be separated neatly from physical cardiovascular risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers studied inflammatory markers and cardiovascular outcomes across nearly 488,000 UK Biobank participants.People with the highest levels of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-620068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}