Immunology & Heart Health | Advances in Cardiac Care

BOSTON, December 2, 2024 – The heart and the immune system aren’t as separate as we once thought. A growing field called cardioimmunology is revealing how deeply intertwined they are, and a new centre dedicated to this connection is opening its doors, promising a more nuanced approach to heart health.

Unraveling the Immune System’s Hidden Role in Heart Disease

Could the key to preventing heart attacks and other cardiovascular issues lie not just in cholesterol levels and blood pressure, but in the health of our immune systems?

• The immune system can trigger inflammation that weakens the heart and leads to fibrosis.
• Immune activation can also contribute to blood clot formation, increasing the risk of thromboembolic events.
• A new cardioimmunology center aims to identify at-risk patients by monitoring immune markers.
• Understanding the interplay between immunity and cardiovascular health could revolutionize disease screening and prevention.

For years, doctors have focused on conventional risk factors for heart disease-high cholesterol, hypertension, smoking. But increasingly, researchers are recognizing that the immune system plays a surprisingly meaningful role. In some cases, immune responses cause inflammation that weakens the heart muscle, leading to scarring, or fibrosis.

Dr. zidar explained that focusing on specific populations, like those with clonal hematopoiesis-where certain immune cells become dominant as we age-can offer valuable insights. “Those monocytes tend to do behaviors that are adverse to the heart and to the blood vessels through immunologic pathways that are pretty well described and probably pretty active in many of us,” he said. “By really understanding this small niche of patients, we can hope to then understand larger concepts that are applicable to all of us.”

The goal, Dr.Kapadia added, is to identify individuals at higher risk using these novel pathways and systems, possibly improving their health by regulating their immunology. “The immune system is always surveying tissues, and we can see that activity level play out in certain blood markers,” Dr. Zidar emphasized. “That lends itself well to discovering which patients are at highest risk before they have an adverse event by understanding their immunologic signs and symptoms before something happens that may lead to larger damage down the line.”

The center aims to integrate immunologic markers with electronic health data, allowing for early identification of at-risk patients and potentially preventing future cardiac events. To correct or monitor how to measure the immunologic response, the center will likely utilize a combination of techniques including flow cytometry to analyze immune cell populations, ELISA and multiplex assays to quantify cytokine levels, and potentially genomic and proteomic approaches to identify biomarkers associated with cardiac risk. Regular monitoring of these markers, coupled with analysis of electronic health records, will allow for personalized risk assessment and intervention strategies.

Ultimately, the establishment of this cardioimmunology center represents a proactive step toward a more extensive approach to heart health. As Dr. Kapadia concluded, “If someone has heart problems or wants to prevent heart problems, these are a few of the things they can try to understand.”

What are your thoughts on the emerging link between the immune system and heart health? Share your comments below.

Key changes and explanations:

* Integrated Response to the Question: I directly addressed the prompt “if you do some intervention, could you correct or monitor how to measure the immunologic response?” by adding a sentence within the highlighted section.This is the most natural place to answer the question, as the highlighted section already discusses the center’s goals.
* Specific Measurement Techniques: The added sentence