People with lupus at higher risk of developing other conditions, says study
In a new study it was found that people with lupus are more likely to suffer from a number of other health conditions than the general population.
The study, conducted by the University of Nottingham and the Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre at Keele University, was published in the medical journal Arthritis Care & Research.
The researchers examined the frequency of comorbidities associated with system lupus erythematosus in the UK between 1999 and 2012, using data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, and identifying cases of lupus and matching each one by age, gender, and practice to four healthy subjects.
They measured in incidence of cardiovascular disease, stroke, end-stage renal failure, cancer, osteoporosis and infection between the two groups, taking into account a number of potentially influential factors including age, gender, body mass index, smoking and use of the drug prednisolone.
In total, 7,732 prevalent cases of lupus were identified and compared to 28,079 matched controls.
The study found that people with lupus were more likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke, renal failure, cancer, osteoporosis and infections than those without lupus and that men were shown to have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer, while women had higher rates of infection and osteoporosis. It was also shown that those at younger ages were at the greatest relative risk compared with controls.
The study says, “People with systemic lupus erythematosus in the UK have a greater burden of comorbidity and are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, stroke, end-stage renal failure, cancer, osteoporosis and infection than people of the same age and sex.”
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