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Autoimmunity
Review
Inflammaging as a link between autoimmunity and cardiovascular disease: the case of rheumatoid arthritis
  1. Pedro Santos-Moreno1,
  2. Gabriel Burgos-Angulo2,
  3. Maria Alejandra Martinez-Ceballos3,
  4. Alejandro Pizano4,
  5. Dario Echeverri4,
  6. Paula K Bautista-Niño5,
  7. Anton J M Roks6 and
  8. Adriana Rojas-Villarraga3
  1. 1Rheumatology, Biomab IPS, Bogota, Colombia
  2. 2Internal Medicine Department, Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud (FUCS), Bogota, Cundinamarca, Colombia
  3. 3Research Division, Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud (FUCS), Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Colombia
  4. 4Vascular Function Research Laboratory and Department of Interventional Cardiology, Fundación Cardioinfantil Instituto de Cardiología, Bogota, Cundinamarca, Colombia
  5. 5Research Center, Fundación Cardiovascular de Colombia, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
  6. 6Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Pharmacology and Vascular Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center Department of Internal Medicine, Rotterdam, South Holland, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Dr Pedro Santos-Moreno; pedrosantosmoreno{at}hotmail.com

Abstract

Currently, traditional and non-traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease have been established. The first group includes age, which constitutes one of the most important factors in the development of chronic diseases. The second group includes inflammation, the pathophysiology of which contributes to an accelerated process of vascular remodelling and atherogenesis in autoimmune diseases. Indeed, the term inflammaging has been used to refer to the inflammatory origin of ageing, explicitly due to the chronic inflammatory process associated with age (in healthy individuals). Taking this into account, it can be inferred that people with autoimmune diseases are likely to have an early acceleration of vascular ageing (vascular stiffness) as evidenced in the alteration of non-invasive cardiovascular tests such as pulse wave velocity. Thus, an association is created between autoimmunity and high morbidity and mortality rates caused by cardiovascular disease in this population group. The beneficial impact of the treatments for rheumatoid arthritis at the cardiovascular level has been reported, opening new opportunities for pharmacotherapy.

  • autoimmune diseases
  • inflammation
  • arthritis
  • rheumatoid
  • cardiovascular diseases
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/rmdopen-2020-001470

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors PS-M—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article; GB-A—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. MAM-C—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. AP—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. DE—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. PKB-N—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. AR-V—study concepts and design, manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article. AJMR—manuscript and figure preparation, manuscript editing, final approval of the article.

    • Funding The authors received financial support from the Ministry of Science (Minciencias) grant number 844-2019 and Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud (FUCS) contract 829-2019: 'Pact for the generation of new knowledge through scientific research projects in Medical and Health Sciences'; project code 500784467051. AJMR receives funding from Stichting Lijf en Leven, Rotterdam, Project 60, and TKI-LSH grant # EMCLSH19013.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.