Cardiology News

According to a review study published in Cardiovascular Research, a publication of the European Society of Cardiology, heart department, pesticides and heavy metals in soil may have negative effects on the cardiovascular system (ESC).

“Soil contamination is a less visible danger to human health than dirty air,” said author Professor Thomas Münzel of the University Medical Center Mainz, Germany. “But evidence is mounting that pollutants in soil may damage cardiovascular health through a number of mechanisms including inflammation and disrupting the body’s natural clock.”

Pollution of air, water and soil is responsible for at least nine million deaths each year. More than 60% of pollution-related disease and death is due to cardiovascular disease such as chronic ischaemic heart disease, heart attack, stroke and heart rhythm disorders (arrhythmias).

This research examines the links between soil contamination and human health, with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease. Heavy metals, herbicides, and plastics are examples of soil contaminants. Contaminated soil, according to the scientists, may cause cardiovascular disease by raising oxidative stress in the blood vessels (with more “bad” free radicals and fewer “good” antioxidants), producing inflammation, and disrupting the biological clock (circadian rhythm).

Inhaling desert dust, fertiliser crystals, or plastic particles can all introduce dirt into the body. Heavy metals like cadmium and lead, plastics, and organic toxicants (found in pesticides, for example) may all be ingested orally. Soil contaminants pour into rivers, resulting in contaminated water that can be drank.

Pesticides are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. While individuals in the agricultural and chemical sectors are most vulnerable, the general population may be exposed to pesticides through contaminated food, soil, and water.

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Cadmium is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in trace levels in air, water, soil, and food, as well as in industrial and agricultural processes. Nonsmokers get most of their cadmium from food. According to the research, population studies on the association between cadmium and cardiovascular illness have had conflicting results, and it cites a Korean study that found middle-aged Koreans with high blood cadmium had an increased risk of stroke and hypertension.

Researchers discovered that a midgestational elevation in the hormone leptin, which most of us identify with hunger reduction, produces serious blood vessel malfunction and inhibits the baby’s growth in preeclampsia, which puts both mother and baby at danger.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘Hypertension.’ Critical supply chain difficulties with nutrition and oxygen can result in preterm delivery or even death, as well as an increase in the child’s and mother’s lifelong risk of cardiovascular disease.

Women with preeclampsia have an increase in leptin production by the placenta at 20 weeks into their pregnancy, but the consequences are unknown.

“It’s sort of emerging as a marker of preeclampsia,” said Dr Jessica Faulkner, a vascular physiologist in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia and the study’s corresponding author in the journal Hypertension.

Leptin, which is mostly generated by fat cells, is also created by the placenta, which allows the mother to provide nutrition and oxygen to her developing baby, according to Faulkner.

Leptin levels rise regularly during a healthy pregnancy, although it’s unclear exactly what leptin does in this situation. There is some indication that it is a natural nutrition sensor in reproduction or a means to allow new blood vessel formation and/or activate growth hormone for normal development.

However, leptin levels rise greater in preeclamptic individuals.

“However, in preeclamptic individuals, leptin levels rise more than they should,” Faulkner explained.

The current study indicates for the first time that an increase in leptin causes endothelial dysfunction, which causes blood vessels to tighten, their ability to relax, and the baby’s growth to be inhibited.

When the scientists suppressed the precursor for the potent, natural blood artery dilator nitric oxide, as happens in hypertension, the effect of the midgestation leptin rise was nearly identical.

To make matters worse, the researchers have evidence that leptin increases levels of the blood vessel constrictor endothelin 1.

Endothelial failure did not occur when the aldosterone receptors, in this case the mineralocorticoid receptors on the surface of the cells that line blood arteries, were eliminated, according to Dr Eric Belin de Chantemele, physiologist in MCG’s Vascular Biology Center and the paper’s senior author.

“We believe the placenta is not adequately developed in preeclamptic individuals,” Faulkner explains. “Fetal growth is not progressing as it should in the middle of pregnancy. The placenta, I believe, is compensating by boosting leptin synthesis “Possibly with the purpose of promoting more normal development. However, the consequences appear to be the polar opposite.

“It can harm the baby’s growth and raise the chance of long-term health problems for both the infant and the mother,” she said.

While leptin has been linked to preeclampsia, this is the first study to indicate that as leptin levels rise, the harmful clinical signs of preeclampsia emerge, according to Belin de Chantemele.

They saw an unfavourable chain reaction when they injected leptin into pregnant mice to imitate the spike that occurs in preeclampsia, with the adrenal gland producing more of the steroid hormone aldosterone, which might be enhancing the synthesis of endothelin 1, also by the placenta.

Previous research has revealed that an infusion of leptin causes endothelial dysfunction outside of pregnancy.

Belin de Chantemele’s lab pioneered research demonstrating that fat-derived leptin directly stimulates the adrenal glands to produce more aldosterone, which activates mineralocorticoid receptors found throughout the body, particularly in female blood vessels, and is important for blood pressure levels.

Obesity is characterised by high aldosterone levels, which are a significant cause of metabolic and cardiovascular issues.

They hypothesised that the infusion of leptin at midgestation in preeclampsia had a similar effect that deletion of the mineralocorticoid receptors lining blood vessels may resolve. They’ve linked comparable physiological dots in young girls, where obesity frequently robs the early years of the protection from cardiovascular illness that being female generally confers until menopause.

According to Faulkner, these same players are probable contributors in what raises the mother’s lifetime risk of cardiovascular issues.

“It suggests the system is dysregulated, and that’s when you get the sickness,” she explained.

Their aims include better understanding the routes for high blood pressure and other blood vessel malfunction, pathways that may be targeted during pregnancy to avert potentially fatal outcomes for both mother and baby from what Faulkner refers to as a “two-hit disease.”

To date, their findings suggest that current medications like eplerenone, a blood pressure prescription that binds to the mineralocorticoid receptor, thereby lowering the effect of increased levels of aldosterone, might be useful therapy to better protect mother and baby.

The issues most likely begin with the placenta, and maybe insufficient blood supply to the temporary organ early in its development, as well as subsequent failure of the formation of the large blood arteries that become the pathway for nutrition and oxygen from mother to baby.

Preeclampsia is known to cause issues such as reduced release of placental growth hormones. The bottom line appears to be that by midgestation, the placenta can no longer adequately support the baby, which may be why it secretes leptin, possibly to stimulate its own growth and normal foetal development, but in reality, it contributes to cardiovascular and fatal consequences, including raising the mother’s blood pressure, the scientists report.

Growing Preeclampsia cases

“Unfortunately, preeclampsia rates are growing,” Faulkner adds, both in terms of the number of pregnant women affected and the severity with which they are impacted.

According to a CDC data analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in January of this year, rates of hypertension during pregnancy, including preeclampsia and gestational hypertension, nearly doubled in both rural and urban areas of the United States from 2007 to 19 and have been increasing since 2014.

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Gestational hypertension is defined as a rise in a pregnant woman’s blood pressure during the third trimester but without the presence of protein in the urine, a symptom of renal distress, or indicators of placental malfunction present in preeclampsia.

Carrying more than one foetus, persistent high blood pressure, type 1 or 2 diabetes, renal illness, autoimmune problems before pregnancy, and the use of in vitro fertilisation are also risk factors.

Obesity, which is a risk factor for several of these illnesses and is related with high levels of both aldosterone and leptin, is mostly to blame for rising incidence of preeclampsia, according to Faulkner. Other times, women appear to acquire the condition on their own.

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According to the Indian Heart Association, 50% of all heart attacks in Indian males occur before the age of 50, and 25% of all heart attacks in Indian men occur before the age of 40. The abrupt deaths of a few well-known male celebrities due to a heart attack or cardiac arrest have raised awareness and worries about heart disorders in the recent year.

Taking a closer look, Practo insights revealed a 300 per cent increase in cardiology related online consultations in men compared to last year while in-person appointments to cardiologists grew by 150 per cent for the same period.

From this, close to 60 per cent of both online and in-person cardiology related consultations were from men aged between 21 to 40. And nearly 40 per cent of all online cardiology related consults were from men living in non-metro cities.

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The majority of queries were on ‘cardiac arrest’, ‘heart attack’, ‘coronary artery disease’, ‘How COVID-19 affects heart patients?” and “What are symptoms one should look out for in case of heart attacks?”

Heart health cases in India

Dr Alexander Kuruvilla, Chief Health Strategy Officer, Practo, “India is known to have the highest cases of heart disease patients in the world, and heart related issues among men have become more prevalent in the last couple of years. Heart disease is a chronic medical condition that needs meticulous management. And a patient needs to have access to all the necessary facilities to manage heart related conditions. At Practo, we are focused on improving healthcare delivery in a way that is accessible and affordable for the patients across the country so they can live healthier lives longer. And digital healthcare has provided patients with a potent solution to seek help instantly with a verified doctor 24×7.”

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Recent research findings reveal that modest egg eating might enhance the level of heart-healthy compounds in the blood.

The research was published in the journal ‘eLife.’ Eggs are high in dietary cholesterol, but they also contain a wide range of vital elements. There is contradictory research about whether eating eggs is good or bad for your heart. A 2018 research published in the journal Heart indicated that people who ate eggs daily (roughly one egg per day) had a much reduced risk of heart disease and stroke than those who ate eggs less often.

To further understand this association, the authors of this study conducted a population-based study to investigate how egg intake influences blood indicators of cardiovascular health.

“Few studies have looked at the role that plasma cholesterol metabolism plays in the association between egg consumption and the risk of cardiovascular diseases, so we wanted to help address this gap,” explained first author Lang Pan, MSc at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University, Beijing, China.

Pan and his colleagues chose 4,778 people from the China Kadoorie Biobank, 3,401 of whom had cardiovascular disease and 1,377 who did not. They measured 225 metabolites in plasma samples collected from the subjects’ blood using a method known as targeted nuclear magnetic resonance. They discovered 24 metabolites that were linked to self-reported amounts of egg intake.

Their analyses showed that individuals who ate a moderate amount of eggs had higher levels of a protein in their blood called apolipoprotein A1- a building block of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also known as ‘good lipoprotein’. These individuals especially had more large HDL molecules in their blood, which help clear cholesterol from the blood vessels and thereby protect against blockages that can lead to heart attacks and stroke.

The researchers also discovered 14 compounds connected to cardiac disease. They discovered that those who ate fewer eggs had lower levels of good metabolites and greater amounts of detrimental metabolites in their blood than those who ate eggs more often.

“Together, our results provide a potential explanation for how eating a moderate amount of eggs can help protect against heart disease,” said author Canqing Yu, Associate Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University.
“More studies are needed to verify the causal roles that lipid metabolites play in the association between egg consumption and the risk of cardiovascular disease,” he added.

“This study may also have implications for Chinese national dietary guidelines,” added senior author Liming Li, Boya Distinguished Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University.

“Current health guidelines in China suggest eating one egg a day, but data indicate that the average consumption is lower than this. Our work highlights the need for more strategies to encourage moderate egg consumption among the population, to help lower the overall risk of cardiovascular disease,” he concluded.