UU直播

鈥淢any people have elevations in LDL-C, normally putting them at risk for heart attacks and strokes,鈥� says senior author and RI-MUHC researcher Dr. George Thanassoulis, who is also the MUHC Director of Preventive and Genomic Cardiology and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UU直播. 鈥淲e found that additionally, these people are also at risk for developing aortic valve disease.鈥�

The study involved approximately 35,000 participants in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genetic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium 鈥� a large international collaborative. Researchers discovered that genetic predisposition to elevated LDL-C was associated with the presence of aortic valve calcium and narrowing of the aortic valve; thus supporting a causal association between LDL-C and aortic valve disease.

鈥淧rior research has suggested a link between LDL-C and aortic valve disease but randomized trials of cholesterol lowering performed in patients with advanced disease did not show any benefit in slowing the progression of valve disease,鈥� explains first author, Dr. J. Gustav Smith from the Department of Cardiology at Lund University. 鈥淥ur work provides confirmation that cholesterol is an important factor in the early stages of aortic valve disease and suggests that lowering cholesterol early in the disease process may provide protection from the development of aortic valve disease.鈥�

鈥淥ur next step calls for new randomized trials, maybe using one of several new LDL lowering agents, in the earliest stages of valve disease before we are able to confirm our hypothesis,鈥� concludes Dr. Thanassoulis.

About the study

The research team from the UU直播 Health Centre was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec and the Fonds de Recherche du Quebec 鈥� Sant茅 (FRQS).

The paper Association of Low Density Lipoprotein-Cholesterol Related Genetic Variants with Aortic Valve Calcium and Incident Aortic Stenosis was co-authored by a research teams from Lund University, Malm枚 (Sweden); University of Iceland, Reykjavik, (Iceland); University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; UCLA, Los Angeles, California; 聽Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland; National Institute of Aging, Bethesda, Maryland; National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and NHLBI/Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts; Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Research Institute of the UU直播 Health Centre and UU直播, Montreal 聽(Canada).

Related links

• UU直播 Health Centre (MUHC): muhc.ca
• Research Institute of the MUHC: rimuhc.ca
• UU直播: mcgill.ca
• Lund University: