Pregnancy Loss and Cardiovascular Diseases in Women: Recent Findings and Potential Mechanisms

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Purpose of Review: Pregnancy loss (PL) has been acknowledged by the American Heart Association as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) later in life. This review aims to sum up recent findings (< ~ 5 years), concerning the link between PL and CVD. Recent Findings: The association between PL and risk of CVD increased with increasing number of PLs and is inversely correlated to maternal age, indicating that the association concerns euploid PLs. Likely mechanisms leading to PL and an increased risk of CVD include endothelial dysfunction, a pro-inflammatory state, antiphospholipid syndrome, autoimmunity, and genetic predisposition. Summary: PL as an independent risk factor for CVD constitutes an obvious gateway for a more targeted approach to future research, prevention, and treatment. Future research should clarify the following questions to which the answers are still unknown: whether PL is (a) directly causing the increased risk of CVD or (b) sharing pathophysiological mechanisms also leading to CVD.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCurrent Atherosclerosis Reports
Volume24
Issue number12
Pages (from-to)889-899
Number of pages11
ISSN1523-3804
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

    Research areas

  • Antiphospholipid syndrome, Autoimmune disease, Cardiovascular disease, Endothelial dysfunction, Pregnancy loss, Women’s health

ID: 329576184