Persistent inflammation linked to stress and life's hardships silently remodels the heart and raises the risk of heart attack and stroke by 43 percent. That is the conclusion of scientists from a large-scale study reported by ScienceDaily and cited by infohub.kz.
The work was carried out by experts at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Medical Sciences at Imperial College London. They demonstrated the dangerous impact of chronic inflammation on the cardiovascular system: ongoing inflammatory processes triggered by stress, psychological distress, and social factors can quietly alter the physical structure of the organ over years before the first clinical symptoms of disease appear.
The researchers found that people with the highest levels of inflammation (the top fifth of participants) had a 43 percent higher risk of myocardial infarction and stroke compared with those whose levels were minimal. Cardiologists recorded that high inflammation is accompanied by gradual thickening of the heart walls, shrinking of its chambers, and worsening of its ability to fill with blood. Over time, this hidden remodeling of the organ can lead to heart failure.
Declan O'Regan, head of the cardiac computational tomography group, noted that millions of people may be living with an unrecognized inflammatory process that is slowly damaging the cardiovascular system. The specialists identified proteins from the interleukin-1 and TNF families as potential participants in this pathological process. The discovery offers hope that early diagnosis of inflammatory marker levels in the blood and the use of anti-inflammatory therapy will help prevent severe heart disease in time.