H. Pylori Linked to Atherosclerosis in Healthy People

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Current infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori) was associated with significant subclinical coronary artery stenosis in a population with no prior arterial disease, suggesting a need for earlier diagnosis and treatment of this pathogen to forestall progression to overt disease, researchers reported.

"This result suggests the possibility that H. pylori eradication might be worthwhile in preventing coronary artery disease, Shinae Kang, MD, PhD, of Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, and colleagues wrote online in PLoS One.

• To address H. pylori's impact on the arteries of healthy individuals, Kang's group studied 463 consecutive patients who underwent voluntary health check-ups at Gangnam Severance Hospital in Seoul during 2007-2014. The mean age of participants was 54.2, and 336 were men.
• The patients underwent post-biopsy rapid urease testing of gastric mucosa, using the Campylobacter-like organism test (CLO) and were then divided into two groups based on CLO status. Patients also underwent pulse-wave velocity (PWV) measurement and cardiac multidetector computed tomography.
• With significant coronary artery narrowing defined in the study as ≥50% stenosis in any major epicardial coronary vessels or branches, the CLO-positive group (n=224) was more than twice as likely as the CLO-negative group (n=239) to have significant stenosis, with an incidence of 7.6% versus 2.9% (P=0.01).
• Even after the researchers adjusted for confounding factors, the positive group had an adjusted odds ratio of 2.813 (95% CI 1.051-7.528, P=0.04).
• CLO-positive participants also had lower mean high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) compared with CLO-negative subjects: 46.6 versus 49.6 mg/dL. Triglyceride levels were also higher, at 134.5 versus 116.4 mg/dL. Furthermore, the number of participants who had coronary artery calcium scores >0 was significantly greater in the CLO-positive group, and the number of vessel segments with plaque was slightly higher in CLO-positive patients, at 0.22 versus 0.17 (P=0.03).

"H. Pylori Linked to Atherosclerosis in Healthy People," Medpage Today, March 31, 2018, https://www.medpagetoday.com/gastroenterology/generalgastroenterology/72089