Exclusive: ACR Convergence 2024| Focus Rheums

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Why Rheumatologists Should Focus on Patients’ Cardiovascular Health

  |  Issue: July 2016  |  

Simon M. Helfgott, MDSimon M. Helfgott, MD, is associate professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

References

  1. Foltin L. Pablo Sandoval swung so hard he busted his belt. Fox Sports. 2016 Apr 9.
  2. Davis S. Pablo Sandoval’s weight is such a problem that his former team was going to extremes to prevent him from overeating. Business Insider. 2016 Apr 15.
  3. Cholesterol and controversy: Past, present and future. Scientific American Blog Network. 2011 Nov 15.
  4. Nichols AV, Robert M. Glaeser RM, Mel HC. In Memoriam. John W. Gofman. U.C. Berkeley.
  5. Keys A. Seven Countries. A Multivariate Analysis of Death and Coronary Heart Disease. Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1980.
  6. Framingham Heart Study.
  7. Yusuf S, Bosch J, Dagenais G, et al. Cholesterol lowering in intermediate-risk persons without cardiovascular disease. N Engl J Med. 2016 May 26;374(21):2021–2031.
  8. Seidah NG, Awan Z, Chretien M, et al. PCSK9. A key modulator of cardiovascular health. Circ Res. 2014 Mar 14;114(6):1022–1036.
  9. Robertson J, Peters MJ, McInnes IB, et al. Changes in lipid levels with inflammation and therapy in RA: A maturing paradigm. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2013 Sep;9(9):513–523.
  10. Myasoedova E, Crowson CS, Maradit Kremers H, et al. Total cholesterol and LDL levels decrease before rheumatoid arthritis. Ann Rheum Dis. 2010 Jul;69(7):1310–1314.
  11. Litwin SE. Good fat, bad fat. The increasingly complex interplay of adipose tissue and the cardiovascular system. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2013 Jul 9;62(2):136–137.
  12. Taylor SI. Metabolic syndrome—An ill wind that blows some good? Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2015 May;31(4):344–345.
  13. Odegaard J, Chawla A. Pleiotropic actions of insulin resistance and inflammation in metabolic homeostasis. Science. 2013 Jan 11;339(6116):172–177.

Related Articles

    Cardiovascular Risk in Tocilizumab Therapy for RA

    Observation and research have confirmed that patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease than their peers of similar age and gender, and that traditional risk factors and chronic inflammation associated with RA apparently play a significant role in that risk. However, predicting which patients with rheumatoid arthritis are at greater…

    Cholesterol Levels in Patients with RA Starting Methotrexate

    Although research regarding the increased cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has burgeoned in recent years, the need remains for a better understanding of the effects of widely used DMARDs on CV risk and risk factors in RA patients. These authors set out to evaluate the long-term changes in cholesterol levels in patients with early RA. Decreases in RA disease activity over long-term follow-up were associated with increases in cholesterol levels in patients with early RA treated with either biologic or nonbiologic therapies…

    A Heart In Danger

    Rheumatologists should monitor and aggressively treat cardiac risk factors in patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis