Chlamydia and Heart Disease

[Redbaron]

It has now been almost 5 years since studies linked chlamydia to heart disease, possibly through an autoimmune disorder in the heart. In 1999 this site advised that- quote "Several large-scale studies are currently underway to evaluate different antibiotic regimens designed to eradicate Chlamydia. Thus, I suggest that you stay tuned and wait for further results." unquote (posted April 11 1999).
Have these studies either disproved or given weight to the Chlamydia/Heart disease theory during the past 4 to 5 years?
Thank you.

[Billy!]

If a person is tested for chlamydia pneumonia(IGA,IGG,IGM) and the result is negative does this means that the same person is also negative for other chlamydias?If a normal range for chlamydia pneumonia IGG is < 1:16 does it matter whether the result is <:10 or <1:10?Would it be better if the result is <:10 instead of <1:10 (and thus less likely being positive) even though both results are within normal range of < 1:16? Thank you

[Cleveland Clinic]

They were treated for 11 weeks. 8 days is not that much shorter of a term. Anything is possible in the genesis hypothesis. However, more convincing data will need to be acquired.

[runnertom]

I have not read the particulars of the large studies you refer to, but was wondering whether the antibiotic regimen lasted for 85 days as the small study I was referring to. My impression was that the therapy in the larger studies was much shorter term.
  Is it possible that the clamdia infection actually occurred many years ago and initiated the lesion then? Antibiotics would be of no value now if there was no active infection but the lesions created then would continue to progress.

[Redbaron]

Quote "While holding alot of promise initally, and still possible marginal benfit, chlamydia has not proved to be the panacea that people hoped."unQuote.

The 'Chlamydia connection' was grabbing headlines in the late 90's, then not a lot was heard on the subject, so I am grateful for the update.
Thank you.

[Cleveland Clinic]

Red,

There are alot of smaller studies that have shown that effect.  The Wizard (Weekly Intervention with Zithromax for Atherosclerosis and its Related Disorders) trial however, was the largest study yet and used azithromycin(similar to clarithromycin). IN that study they treated over 7000 patients after a heart attack with elevated chlamydia titres. In that study there was no benefit of antibiotic treatment.

While holding alot of promise initally, and still possible marginal benfit, chlamydia has not proved to be the panacea that people hoped. There are alot of other exciting places to place our hopes, ie...HDL therapy, that I believe will prove to make marked strides in the next 5 to 10 years in the treatment of coronary disease.

[Redbaron]

Thank you for the comments on this topic. I have an article in my possession dated 1999 in which a 'Doctor James Le Fanu' espoused the opinion that diet did not cause Heart Attcks, and that the real culprit was Chlamydia. He quoted some interesting facts(?), such as a 1982 experiment involving 60,000 middle aged men. One half of the group were encouraged to 'stop smoking', 'exercise regularly', 'and avoid eating meat , saturated fats, and dairy products'. The other group was left alone to continue their normal life-style. After almost 10 years the basic result was that the 'healthy lifestyle' group suffered 40 heart attacks per 1,000, and the 'normal lifestyle' group suffered 41 Heart Attacks per 1,000!
Dr James Le Fanu was of the opinion that research such as this proved that Chlamydia and not Diet was more than likely the real culprit in Heart Attacks, so I was interested to see if the intervening 5 years had either proved or disproved the theory.

[runnertom]

Redbaron,
   I have also been very interested in this research as I endured CABG at age 54 with little in the way of conventional risk factors. I recently ran into an article in our local TV station's website reporting on a study suposedly published in Circulation (although I have not been able to find it). It appears to have been news in 2002.
   According to the article, a Doctor Juha Sinisalo of Helsinki University treated 148 heart patients for 85 days with 500 mg/day of clarithromycin. Clarithromycin is a type of antibiotic called a macrolide. Over three months, 11 patients receiving the antibiotic  suffered heart attacks, unstable angine or death compared to 19 in the control group. In addition, in the 1.5 years of followup, those who got antibiotics were half as likely to suffer another heart related complication.
   Since the study was small and the effects may have been due to the anti-inflamatory effects of clarithromycin, the implications are somewhat controversial. Hopefully, we may see more of this line of research in the near future.

[Cleveland Clinic]

redbaron,

Thanks for the post. It's not an easy one.

There have been multiple links between chlamdia infection and the development of atherosclerotic heart disease. Alot of these studies implicate the inflammation from chronic infection in the genesis of atherosclerotic plaque.  In fact Chlamydial DNA has even been recovered from some plaque.

Unfortunately, the significance of this finding has not resulted in that much clinical benefit for the treatment of patients suffering from atherosclerosis. 2 large, well designed trials released recently were the WIZARD and ACADEMIC trials, they attempted to reduce cardiovascular risk using antibiotics in patients with known CVD and evidence of C pneumoniae infection and overall been failures in showing any benefit for treatment.

So right nowm what I would tell you is that it is an intriguing finding, but after large studies have not born the fruit taht everyone looked for.  There are alot of other validated risk factors and treatments that are better current and most likely future options.

thanks for the post