Researchers from the University of Leeds in the U.K. have found that people who are prescribed low doses of steroids, which are typically used to treat inflammatory disorders, are at an increased risk of heart disease.
While doctors have long known the link between high glucocorticoid dosages and an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the link between low doses and this risk has received less attention.
The team's findings suggest that levels of steroids previously thought to be safe in the long term may, in fact, pose significant health risks to those who use them.
Low doses offered to individuals with Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases (IMIDs) have typically been proven to be safe, but scientific data is lacking. Researchers at the University of Leeds were compelled to investigate how modest dosages of glucocorticoids affect a person's risk of CVD.
Researchers in the U.K.have devised a study to assess the dose-dependent cardiovascular risk of glucocorticoids. They gathered and analyzed medical records for 87,794 persons who were diagnosed with one of six different IMIDs. All patients were treated at 389 primary care units in the United Kingdom between 1998 and 2017.
Patients who received less than 5 mg of glucocorticoid per day had nearly double the risk of developing CVD when compared to non-glucocorticoid patients, according to the study's findings. Aortic aneurysm, atrial fibrillation, cerebrovascular illness, heart failure, and peripheral arterial disease were all increased in patients taking this dosage.
Previously, glucocorticoid doses of 5 mg or less were considered safe, even when taken over an extended period of time. The recent research calls into question the generally held belief that relatively tiny doses will dramatically increase a patient's risk of CVD, with just 5 mg doubling the chances of getting such a disease.
The findings are significant for IMID patients' future care. It suggests that clinicians should often use the lowest possible dosage and that tailored preventative methods can be critical in protecting people from an unnecessarily high risk of CVD.
For the first time, researchers discovered that people who take any amount of steroids, not only in large doses, have an increased risk of developing a variety of CVDs. The new study's findings also show that this risk increases with medication dosage and duration.
Importantly, the study contradicts the widely held belief that modest doses are not as harmful to cardiovascular health as high amounts. This has significant implications for the treatment of IMID patients, who are twice as likely to develop CVD as the general population.
This study emphasizes the need for new long-term medicines for IMIDs with a better safety profile to be researched and developed.
