A new study has revealed the reason why so many seemingly ‘healthy’ people suffer heart attacks and strokes.
It’s estimated that up to half of all cases of stroke and heart attack occur in people who do not smoke, don’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and do not have diabetes.
These are comorbidities which are categorised as ‘standard modifiable risk factors’ (SMuRFs).
Historical data also reveals that ‘healthy’ women often suffer from heart attacks and strokes, prompting researchers from by Mass General Brigham to investigate how to identify the ones who are at risk but are missed by current screening algorithms.
Using data from the Women’s Health Study, they looked at 12,530 healthy women with no standard modifiable risk factors, and tracked the level of an inflammatory biomarker called hsCRP over a period of 30 years.
Although these women didn’t have SMuRFs, women who had high levels of hsCRP had a 77 per cent increased lifetime risk of coronary heart disease.
Furthermore, they had a 39 per cent increased lifetime risk of stroke, and a 52 per cent increased lifetime risk of any major cardiovascular event.
A separate trial using randomised data found that ‘SMuRF-Less but Inflamed’ patients can reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke by 38 per cent by using statin therapy—and this should begin in middle age, when women are around 40.
Researchers have pinpointed why ‘healthy’ people suffer strokes
The same markers are seen in ‘healthy’ people who have heart attacks
Statins are a family of drugs designed to reduce the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as bad-cholesterol, in the blood.
The pills are absorbed by the body’s digestive system, where they then reduce the production of LDL in the liver.
After years of being developed in labs and going through rigorous trials trials, they eventually burst onto the wider medical scene in the 80s when they were originally approved.
Numerous, influential studies have proven that statins, which cost as little as 2p a tab, are life-savers, drastically cutting the odds of a heart attack or stroke.
Paul Ridker, MD, MPH, a preventive cardiologist at Mass General Brigham’s Heart and Vascular Institute said: ‘While those with inflammation should aggressively initiate lifestyle and behavioral preventive efforts, statin therapy could also play an important role in helping reduce risk among these individuals.
‘Women who suffer from heart attacks and strokes yet have no standard modifiable risk factors are not identified by the risk equations doctors use in daily practice.
‘Yet our data clearly show that apparently healthy women who are inflamed are at substantial lifetime risk.
‘We should be identifying these women in their 40s, at a time when they can initiate preventive care, not wait for the disease to establish itself in their 70s when it is often too late to make a real difference.’
A change in official guidance could open the door to millions more Britons being prescribed statins
Stroke is a leading global cause of death and disability. There are more than 100,000 strokes in the UK each year, about one every five minutes.
This leads to 38,000 stroke deaths every year making it the UK’s fourth-biggest killer and a leading cause of disability.
In the US, more than 795,000 people suffer a stroke each year, of which 137,000 die.
Millions of Britons are living with conditions linked to inflammation.
While obesity is the main cause of this and other chronic health problems—typically type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which also damage the body’s maintenance systems, including immunity.
Other conditions where inflammation is implicated include non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, where stored fat clogs up the liver (this affects an estimated one adult in three) and dementia, which is often a complication of heart disease and diabetes.
A major research review, published in 2016 by the American Society for Nutrition, concluded that obesity and the health problems associated with it—such as high blood pressure, raised blood sugar levels and tummy fat—have a ‘substantial impact’ on the health of the immune system and defence against disease.
