Hospital infections may increase risk of cardiovascular diseases: Study

Image for representational purpose only

London: A new study has revealed that infections acquired from the hospital may increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.

The study showed that cardiovascular risk was more than doubled in years two and three after the infection and persisted for at least five years.

Scott Montgomery, Professor at the Orebro University in Sweden said,"Severe infections in adulthood are associated with a contemporaneously raised risk of cardiovascular disease." 

Cecilia Bergh, an affiliated researcher at the varsity said,"Our results indicate that the risk of cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke, increased after hospital admission for sepsis or pneumonia."

For the study, the team included 2,36,739 men at around age 18 years, who were followed from late adolescence into middle age.

The results showed that infection was associated with a 6.33-fold raised risk of cardiovascular disease during the first year after the infection.

In the second and third years following an infection, cardiovascular disease risk remained raised by 2.47 and 2.12 times.

Risk decreased with time but was still raised for at least five years after the infection by nearly two-fold (hazard ratio 1.87).

Similar findings were observed for coronary heart disease, stroke, and fatal cardiovascular disease.

Bergh said,"The risk remained notably raised for three years after infection and was still nearly two-fold after five years." 

The researchers noted, although conventional cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, overweight, obesity, poorer physical fitness are important, an infection may be the primary source of risk for a limited time.

Montgomery noted,"Our findings provide another reason to protect against infection and suggest that there is a post-infection window of increased cardiovascular disease risk." 

The study was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.