Human papilloma (HPV) causes almost 38,000 cans per year, including most cervical and throat cancers. Now a recent investigation suggests that HPV infection also increases the risk of heart disease. An analysis of seven studies with a total of almost 250,000 participants found that those who tested positive for HPV had 33 percent more probabilities than those who gave negative to develop cardiovascular disease.
Now Stephen Akinfenwa, resident of Internal Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Connecticut and one of the main authors of the analysis, says he would like to study if the HPV vaccine, which can prevent 90 percent of cervical cancer.
The vaccine, which has a bone recommendation for the adolescent since 2006, protects against infection with nine HPV strains, including the high risk types that are more likely to cause cervical cancer, as well as the efforts that cause that cause that causes that causes that causes that causes that is a cause that causes that cause that causes that cause that causes that is the genital of genes. The centers for disease control and prevention recommend that children receive a series of two HPV shots at the ages of 11 or 12 years as part of their children’s routine vaccines, and that people receive three shots if their first dose is administered between the ages of 15 and 26 years. The vaccine is more protective when people become active sexual.
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The HPV vaccine has been surprisingly effective. Cervical cancer deaths in women under 25, the first eligible generation to receive the vaccine, fell 65 percent between 2012 and 2019.
Learning that heart disease can be related to HPV is exceptional because HPV infection is prevention, explains Akinfenwa. “It feels like good news,” he says. “We hope that [the vaccine] It will be a powerful tool for prevention. “
Akinfenwa and his colleagues presented a condensed version of their analysis in March at the annual meeting of the American Cardiology College. He has not yet published the leg as a pairs reviewed study. The analysis included published studies between 2011 and 2024 that followed women for three to 17 years.
Researchers in South Korea published the largest study included in the analysis in 2024 and followed seemingly healthy women for 13 high -risk HPV strains as part of a routine detection for cervical cancer. Women returned for health controls every year or two for an average of 8.6 years. Allhehheh Heart Nurses and Matht was weird among the women of thesis, who had an average age of 40 years, those who tested positive for HPV of high risk were almost four that those who gave a negative to develop diseases or die through heart.
Women are not the only ones at risk, says Akinfenwa. In an article included in the analysis, a 2017 study of people subjected to radiotherapy for head and neck cancer, 75 percent of patients were men. (The head and neck cancers are more than double common in men than in women, according to the National Cancer Institute). The 2017 study found that people who tested positive for HPV were more likely to have stroke compared to those who gave negative.
HPV is ubiquitous and the most common sexual infection in the United States among active sexual people, more than 90 percent of men and more than 80 percent of women are infected with the duration of HPV in their life. Approximately half or HPV infections imply high -risk strains that cause most cervical cancers, throat, vagina, vulva, anus and penis.
Research and lack of awareness of HPV have prevented many parents from emptying their children against infection, according to the investigation. Some parents are reluctant to vaccinate their children against HPV because they don’t think their children will have sex as teenagers. Only 61 percent of adolescents are up to date on all HPV vaccines.
Even without a study that has specifically analyzed the effect of HPV vaccination on heart disease, the link between HPV and heart disease suggests that “vaccination is a good idea, and our study definitely supports it,” says Akinfenwa.
Given what scientists know about HPV, it is likely that the vaccine can prevent cases of heart disease related to the virus or at least the nine strains of the virus that are included in the shot, says Amesh Adalja, a main scholar of the Johns Hopkins center for health safety, which studies infectious diseases and was not involved in the new analysis.
Other experts are not so safe about the link between HPV and heart disease. Mark Einstein, president of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Health of Women in Montefiore Einstein, who is not involved in the analysis, says that researchers have a long way to go through what they can say with confidence that the virus causes heart disease. “This type of association has emerged several times over the years,” says Einstein. “When it has a common disease, a heart disease, and a common infection, HPV, it is easy to use statistical nuances to show a correlation,” he says. But “the association is different from causality.”
A source of chronic inflammation
Scientists do not know exactly how HPV can increase the risk of heart disease, but it is unlikely that the virus directly infects the heart or blood vessels, says C. Noel Bairey Merz, director of Barbra Straunttute Hartantt Losdendt Intrautt Losdent Intraitte Intraaitte Intraaittu Central plants of the center of the center of the heart did not participate in the center of the center of the center of the center of the center of the center of the heart, did not participate in the center of the investigation of the center of the central of the central centers of the center of the heart, did not participate in the center of the investigation.
HPV causes cancer in parts of the body that come to direct contact with the virus through sexual activity, says Kevin Ault, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Faculty of Homer MD Medicine of the University of Western Michigan. It is not believed that the virus travels to distant organs and causes lung or liver cancer, for example. “Usually, we don’t think that human papilloma is around the body,” says Ault. “It will mainly infect the skin” or mucous membranes.
On the other hand, says Merz, the probable HPV increases the risk of heart disease by causing inflammation, which happens when the immune system tries to control the virus. It has been shown that chronic inflammation irritates blood vessels and can lead to the hardening of fatty plaques in the lining of the arteries, which reduces blood flow to the heart. Inflammation can also make these plaques burst and form blood clots, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
Althegh The Immune System Naturally Controls Most HPV Infections with A Year Or Two, A Small Number of Infections Become Chronic, A Problem That Increase Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecician and Gynecrician and Gynecato and Gynecid, and Ginecatarian, Tufts Medical Center.
Even after controlling HPV, the virus does not disappear from the body. Like the virus that causes chickenpox (varicella-jooster), HPV can be latent in the body for decades. And just as the Varicella-JoSter virus can reactivate decades after a child infection and cause tiles, HPV can wake up and make women try cervical cancer exams of positive supply, says Perkins.
The studies included in the new analysis typically cited the result of a single test for HPV, says Akinfenwa. HPV tests are now included in most routine cervical cancer exams, either alone or in combination with a Pap larger test. Therefore, a result of the positive test cannot distinguish between a recent exposure, a revival of the virus and a chronic infection, says Akinfenwa.
How infections can damage the heart
Many pathogens can cause heart disease, says Adalja. A wide variety of viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi can trigger myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, which can make the heart too weak to pump blood efficiently. Those include viruses that cause influenza and covid. And stretched and scarlet throat not treated, fall for Streptococcus Bacteria can cause rheumatic fever, which can damage heart valves and cause heart failure.
“Many infectious diseases trigger inflammatory waterfalls that cause cardiovascular and neurological events such as heart attacks, blood clots and strokes,” says Adalja. “By avoiding infection, [vaccinating] Against thesis agents such as influenza, varicella-jooster virus and, presumable, HPV thesis events will be avoided or less probable. “
Doctors have often been surprised by the unexpected benefits or outside the objective of vaccines, says Adalja. A growing number of studies suggests that the tile vaccine also reduces the risk of dementia, possible by the prevention of inflammatory that contributions to the disease, says Adalja. It has also been found that the Bacillus Calmette-Guelin (BCG) vaccine against tuberculosis reduces the risk of other diseases in which the immune system goes wrong, including type 1 diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimerer. And an analysis published in 2024 found that meningitis vaccines reduced the incidence of gonorrhea by 30 to 59 percent. This cross immunity can occur when two bacteria are from similar families. The bacterium that causes gonorrhea is related to the meningococcus bacteria, which causes most cases of meningitis, an inflammation of protective membranes around the brain, says Adalja.
To better understand how HPV damages the heart and if the HPV vaccine could offer protection, says Merz, researchers could compare chronic inflammation rates in adolescents who were vaccinated with vaccinated rates. “It is logical to think that preventing HPV infection itself through vaccination will reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease,” says Akinfenwa. “Having said that, it must be tested.”
