Late-Onset Asthma Linked to Increased Stroke, CVD Risk

HealthDay News — Late-onset asthma may increase risk for incident cardiovascular disease and stroke, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Matthew Tattersall, DO, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and colleagues conducted the study involving 1269 adults, average age 47, none of whom had CVD at the beginning of the study. Of the participants, 111 had been diagnosed with late-onset asthma. Fifty-five more patients had been diagnosed with asthma as children. The health of all the participants was tracked for 14 years.

The researchers found that patients with late-onset asthma were 57% more likely than those with early-onset asthma and those without asthma to suffer myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, angina, and CVD-related death.

Based on the findings, “doctors should be monitoring for high blood pressure and cholesterol closely in these patients and be aggressive in modifying any risk factors,” Dr Tattersall said in a journal news release.

Reference

Tattersall M, Barnet J, Korcarz C, Hagen E, Peppard P, Stein J. Late‐onset asthma predicts cardiovascular disease events: The Wisconsin sleep cohort. J Am Heart Assoc. 2016;5(9):e003448.