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A new study has revealed that high LDL cholesterol is linked to aortic valve stenosis. The study was published in the JAMA and it found a causal association between high LDL (or bad) cholesterol and aortic valve disease, a type of disease of the aortic valve in which the valve becomes narrow, confining the blood flow to reach the heart.
The lead author of the study is Dr. George Thanassoulis from McGill University in Canada. He states that aortic valve stenosis is the most common form of heart valve disease in Europe and North America which is often fixed by an aortic valve replacement.
This new study has only confirmed what older studies have hinted at, without any hard proof, that high LDL cholesterol is linked to aortic valve stenosis.
He revealed that:
[…] if LDL cholesterol plays a causal role in the earlier stages of aortic valve disease, this could have important implications for prevention.
The method used for research in this study is called the Mendelian randomization. It allows scientists to use genetic variation to make out biomarkers that cause disease from those that do not cause disease.
For the study, researchers have analyzed the connection between the participants’ genetic risk score and aortic valve disease. They studied this association in more than 35,000 participants; they also measured calcium levels in the valves of participants with CT scans. The main reason an aortic valve becomes blocked is calcium build-up inside the valve, or aortic valve calcification.
The scientists found that the present of the calcium was more prominent in people who were genetically inclined to have high levels of LDL cholesterol. Thus, participants who were genetically predisposed to high LDL cholesterol were more likely to be diagnosed with aortic valve stenosis.
Dr. George Thanassoulis commented on the results that show high LDL cholesterol is linked to aortic valve stenosis:
Our findings link a genetically mediated increase in plasma LDL cholesterol with early subclinical valve disease, as measured by aortic valve calcium and incident clinical aortic stenosis, providing supportive evidence for a causal role of LDL cholesterol in the development of aortic stenosis. These data suggest that, in addition to the established risks for myocardial infarction and other vascular diseases, increases in LDL cholesterol are also associated with increased risk for aortic stenosis.
