Study suggests link between HPV and heart disease

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20111024/hpv-heart-disease-women-111024/

Study suggests link between HPV and heart disease
CTVNews.ca Staff
Date: Monday Oct. 24, 2011 3:43 PM ET

We already know HPV, or human papillomavirus, can cause cervical cancer. It's also known to cause some kinds of oral cancer.

But could HPV also cause heart disease? An intriguing new study is drawing a link.

The study found that women who are known to be infected with cancer-causing strains of the virus may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke -- even when they have none of the usual heart disease risk factors.

The study authors say their research is one of the first to investigate a potential link between heart disease and HPV, which is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections...

 

[Emily]

Re: Study suggests link between HPV and heart disease

I know the article says CV disease risk factors were taken into account, but they don't specifically mention smoking, which I've read is associated with persistent HPV lesions. Also I was wondering about the effect on CV health of the psychosocial stress caused to a woman by being told by doctors that she has an STD-caused 'precancerous condition' that is persistent. They don't say if the women with HPV knew about their status prior to being enrolled in the study, or if they had been through the mental and physical stress of unsuccessful surgical treatments.

Also I see the article reports that there is an expert who is skeptical about the study at this point:

Dr. Eduardo Franco, director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology at McGill's Faculty of Medicine reviewed the study and says he finds the suggestions that HPV and heart disease could be linked "is not plausible" given what is known about the way different strains of HPV interact with their target cells.

He also found the high rate of HPV infection in the women "suspicious" because, given the ages of the women, the rates should have been much lower.

"Overall, this suggests errors, possibly due to contamination of specimens either during collection or pre/post-processing," he said in comments to CTV News.

He suggested the researchers did not properly consider the marital status of the women, which might have accounted for the link they found between HPV and heart disease.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20111024/hpv-heart-disease-women-111024/#ixzz1blmCW96d