Increased Risk to Develop Hypertension and Carotid Plaques in Patients with Long-Lasting Gastritis.

UNLABELLED

infection has been reported to be positively associated with hypertension, although with conflicting results. In this study, the relationship between infection and hypertension, as well as atherosclerotic carotid lesions, was analyzed.

METHODS

Clinical records of patients referred to undergo upper endoscopy and gastric biopsy were retrieved. Information regarding the presence of infection with atrophy/metaplasia/dysplasia (interpreted as a long-lasting infection), and current or past infection was collected, as well as demographic variables, smoking habits, body mass index (BMI), dyslipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, presence of carotid lesions, and current treatment, and analyzed by multivariable regression models.

RESULTS

A total of 7152 clinical records from patients older than 30 years (63.4% women) were available for the study. Hypertension was present in 2039 (28.5%) patients and the risk was significantly increased in those with long-lasting infection after adjusting for age decades, sex, BMI, cigarette smoking, diabetes, and dyslipidemia (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.02-1.35). In addition, the long-lasting infection was an independent risk for carotid plaques (OR 2.15, 95% CI 1.14-4.09).

CONCLUSIONS

Our retrospective study demonstrated that long-lasting infection is an independent risk factor for hypertension and the presence of carotid lesions after adjusting for potential confounders, although further validation our findings is needed from prospective studies.