The Hospital de Sant Pau has collaborated in a study of the “Health Bus” project which concludes that 71.4% of middle-aged people, between 45 and 70 years old, in Lleida with a low or medium cardiovascular risk present atheromatous arteries, i.e. fatty plaques. Of these, 20% have generalised atheromatous disease, with more than 3 atheroma plaques. This finding reaffirms the assumptions about the prevalence of subclinical, undiagnosed disease in the population with common risk factors such as occult kidney disease or diabetes.
The study, which was recently published in the Spanish Journal of Cardiology, analysed 8,330 asymptomatic people who visited “El Bus de la Salud”, women aged between 50 and 70 and men aged between 45 and 65 with at least one risk factor and no previous history of renal or cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
“This research confirms our initial hypothesis about the prevalence of atheromatous arteries in the population of Lleida. The early diagnosis of this pathology allows for prior action to avoid future diseases or cardiovascular episodes “explained the first author of the article, the researcher of the Renal and Vascular Translational group of the Institute for Biomedical Research of Lleida (IRBLleida) and professor at the University of Lleida (UdL), Marcelino Bermúdez. In 2019, the Health Bus ‘began the second phase of the project which consists of reviewing the 8,330 people included in the project to study their evolution.
The research has been carried out in collaboration with research staff from the Translational Research Groups on Respiratory Medicine, Obesity and Metabolism (Odim) and Clinical Neurosciences at IRBLleida, as well as the departments of Respiratory Medicine, Endocrinology and Nutrition and the Stroke Unit at Arnau de Vilanova University Hospital, the Department of Experimental Medicine at the University of Lleida and the Cappont Primary Care Centre in Lleida, the Lleida Research Support Unit, the Jordi Gol i Gurina University Institute for Primary Health Care Research Foundation (IDIAPJGol), the Endocrinology and Nutrition Services of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and the Sant Pau Institute for Biomedical Research (IIB Sant Pau) in Barcelona, the Centre for Networked Biomedical Research on Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases (CIBERDEM) and the Renal Research Network (RedInRen-ISCIII).
Bermúdez-López M, Martínez-Alonso M, Castro-Boqué E, Betriu À, Cambray S, Farràs C, Barbé F, Pamplona R, Lecube A, Mauricio D, Purroy F, Valdivielso JM, Fernández E; ILERVAS project collaborators. Subclinical atheromatosis localization and burden in a low-to-moderate cardiovascular risk population: the ILERVAS study. Rev Esp Cardiol (Engl Ed). 2020 Nov 5:S1885-5857(20)30424-2. English, Spanish. doi: 10.1016/j.rec.2020.09.015. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33162389.
