BARCELONA – Young patients recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder are at double the 30-year risk of cardiovascular disease, compared with the general population, and their unaffected first-degree relatives are nearly as high risk, Klara Coello, MD, reported at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
The clinical implication of this finding is that unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with bipolar disorder – an affective disorder typically diagnosed at age 15-24 – should be targeted for intensified primary cardiovascular prevention, with a focus on smoking and dyslipidemia, both of which were more prevalent in these patients and their unaffected relatives than in the general population in her study, noted Dr. Coello, a doctoral candidate with the Copenhagen Affective Disorders Research Center at the University of Copenhagen.
She and her coinvestigators presented a cross-sectional study in which they calculated the 30-year Framingham Risk Scores for 221 patients recently diagnosed bipolar disorder – 95% of whom had been diagnosed within the past 2 years – along with 50 unaffected first-degree relatives and 119 age- and sex-matched controls. The investigators used the Framingham Risk Score because the widely used American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Estimator applies only to individuals aged 40 and up.
The key findings: The 30-year risk of cardiovascular disease for patients with bipolar was 98.5% greater than that of controls, and the calculated risk of the unaffected first-degree relatives was increased by 85.4%, compared with that of controls.
The Framingham Risk Score is determined on the basis of old-school cardiovascular risk factors, including age, gender, lipids, systolic blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking. 45% of the bipolar patients were smokers, as were 20% of their first-degree relatives and 13% of controls.
The Danish finding of increased cardiovascular risk in young adults with bipolar disorder recapitulates an American Heart Association Scientific Statement, which was published in Circulation (2015 Sep 8;132[10]:965-86). The statement was intended to alert clinicians that these affective disorders constitute “moderate-risk” conditions for arterial dysfunction prior to age 30 and for premature cardiovascular disease (CVD). The statement declared that this risk is likely mediated not only by the classic cardiovascular risk factors but also by disease-related inflammation, oxidative stress, sleep disruption, and the adverse metabolic effects of many psychotropic medications.
“The magnitude of increased risk for CVD in adulthood is substantial,” according to the AHA expert panel’s scientific statement.
Dr. Coello’s study only took into account levels of the traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Where the study broke new ground that hadn’t been explored in the AHA scientific statement, however, was in identifying unaffected first-degree relatives as an additional at-risk group.
She reported having no financial conflicts regarding her study, which constitutes her PhD thesis.