WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Bacterial infections are associated with an increased risk for incident coronary heart disease (CHD) in individuals with type 1 diabetes, according to a study published online Aug. 4 in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Johan Rasmus Simonsen, M.D., from the University of Helsinki, and colleagues used data from the Finnish Diabetic Nephropathy Study to identify 3,781 individuals with type 1 diabetes and study the association between bacterial infections and the risk for CHD (defined as fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery, or percutaneous coronary intervention) in type 1 diabetes. CHD was identified through national hospital discharge register data.
The researchers found that the 370 individuals with an incident CHD event had a higher mean number of antibiotic purchases per follow-up year versus those without incident CHD, as well as higher levels of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activity. The mean number of antibiotic purchases per follow-up year was an independent risk factor for incident CHD (hazard ratio, 1.21). In an adjusted analysis, high LPS activity was a risk factor for incident CHD (hazard ratio, 1.93).
"The present study demonstrates how infections associate with the development of late diabetic complications and perhaps even more importantly, how infections associate with the development of coronary heart disease, as the latter relationship has been disputed during recent years," Simonsen said in a statement.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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