Can testing blood for antibodies show a link between very active lupus and the development of cvd?
Why do patients with lupus have an increased risk of developing CVD? One theory is that when patients have flares of lupus their blood vessels get inflamed and this leads to CVD. Patients with lupus have antibodies in their blood. The most commonly tested antibodies are anti-DNA antibodies and levels of anti-DNA usually go up when people have flares of active disease. However, anti-DNA antibodies have not been shown to affect blood vessels or to cause CVD. On the other hand there are some antibodies that are more likely to be linked to development of CVD in people with heart disease. These are antibodies that stick to high-density lipoprotein (HDL). HDL is sometimes called “good cholesterol” because it is the type of cholesterol that protects people against CVD. HDL is made up of different components and one of the main components is called apolipoprotein A1 (apo A1).We are very interested in anti-HDL and anti-apo A1 antibodies in our patients with lupus. In the third part of our study
