Raynaud Phenomenon Tied to Elevated Cardiovascular Risk
Individuals with Raynaud phenomenon without underlying systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases had higher risks for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and venous thromboembolism than did a comparator group with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), regardless of age.
METHODOLOGY:
Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study to examine whether individuals with Raynaud phenomenon experienced cardiovascular outcomes more frequently than those without the condition.
They included 30,088 individuals younger than 45 years and 60,145 aged 45 years or older with Raynaud phenomenon without systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases , identified from electronic health records of centers in North America between March 2005 and March 2025.
An equal number of propensity score-matched individuals with IBS were assigned as comparators to both age categories. The researchers chose IBS as a comparator group because, like Reynaud phenomenon, it is common in younger and female individuals. In addition, it is not known to be associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes.
Co-primary outcomes were MACE and venous thromboembolism, evaluated over mean follow-up durations of 4.4-4.9 years across groups.
TAKEAWAY:
Among individuals younger than 45 years, those with Raynaud phenomenon had higher risks for MACE (hazard ratio [HR], 1.23; 95% CI, 1.07-1.42) and venous thromboembolism (HR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.20-1.46) than did those with IBS.
Similar results were observed among individuals aged 45 years or older, where those with Raynaud phenomenon had higher risks for MACE (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.13-1.20) and venous thromboembolism (HR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.14-1.26) than those with IBS.
Individuals with Raynaud phenomenon had higher risks for secondary outcomes such as stroke, any cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary embolism noted in both age categories.
IN PRACTICE:
'[This] data substantiates several previous reports of an increased risk of CVD [cardiovascular disease] in individuals with RP [Raynaud phenomenon], and provides further supporting evidence of a similar risk of VTE [venous thromboembolism],' the authors of the study wrote. 'Taken together our findings lend further support to suggest that RP (in the absence of any secondary SARD [systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease]) could be a manifestation of subclinical CVD. Of course, this requires further confirmation including prospective studies,' they added.
SOURCE:
This study was led by Michael Hughes, The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom. It was published online on August 5, 2025, in Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism.
LIMITATIONS:
Diagnostic codes were used for identifying the conditions; however, misclassification bias may be possible. Details such as digital ischemic episodes were not available for individuals with Raynaud phenomenon and age of onset and family history were not assessed. Many oral drug treatments for Raynaud phenomenon are vasodilators also used for systemic hypertension; hence, the primary indication was unclear.
DISCLOSURES:
One author reported receiving support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. Another author reported receiving support from NIHR Clinical Lectureship, and working at centers supported by Versus Arthritis and NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. Two authors reported receiving research funding, speaker fees, honoraria, and consultancy fees and having other financial ties with multiple companies including Janssen, Sanofi, and Novartis.
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Union representing 22,000 Alberta health professionals reaches tentative agreement
The president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta says he is reluctantly recommending union members ratify a tentative deal that will grant workers at least a 12 per cent wage increase in four years. "Did we get everything we were looking for? No," said HSAA president Mike Parker in an interview on Friday. "The people who need to make that decision on next steps are the members of HSAA who have to work under this agreement." Parker says the proposal is the best deal union leaders think members can get out of the employers. Representatives from the union and provincial health employers, represented by Alberta Health Services, struck a compromise on Thursday. An HSAA news release says it would give 22,000 members in 160 professions three per cent wage increases each year for four years, from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028. HSAA has another 8,000 members who are not included in the deal. About a fifth of 22,000 HSAA workers, who are among the lowest paid in the union, would also get a boost to bring their salaries closer to those of colleagues in other provinces, Parker said. Specific professionals, including primary care paramedics, emergency communication officers, advanced care paramedics, psychologists and perfusionists would also receive extra wage boosts. The news release said the arrangement would include better health benefits for workers, job-protected leave for education upgrades, and better on-call and preceptor pay, among other perks. Other affected workers include physiotherapists, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, medical imaging technologists, and many others employed by AHS, four other new provincial health agencies, Lamont health care centre and Camrose's Bethany Nursing Home. Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner said in a statement Thursday he was pleased the parties had reached a tentative pact after 16 months with no contract. "The partnership between the two parties is a testament to the importance of these health-care professionals and the services they provide to Albertans, and our health system," Horner said. His press secretary was not able to provide the potential cost to the treasury, should workers vote to accept the deal. Professor: agreement could set tone for other unions Parker said by last weekend, negotiations had hit an impasse. "We contacted the highest levels of government and said, 'Look it. This is not good enough,' " he said. Parker said they came away with a letter of understanding that committed the parties to doing a detailed analysis of wages for different professionals across western Canada and Ontario. He said this leaves the door open to potential wage increases for some workers before the tentative agreement expires. Workers will have two weeks to vote on the agreement online, beginning on Aug. 28. Athabasca University human resources and labour relations Prof. Jason Foster said the pact could be a tough sell to some of the union members who wouldn't benefit from extra wage boosts. "They probably have a sense that their members aren't going to be particularly thrilled with it," Foster said of HSAA leaders. Member expectations were high, said Foster, after the United Nurses of Alberta inked a spring deal that gives members about a 20 per cent wage hike over four years. The nurses' agreement came after they rejected an earlier recommendation from a mediator in October 2024. Unionized Alberta teachers also rejected a mediator's settlement proposal in May. "I don't think this is over yet," Foster said of HSAA's tentative agreement. If HSAA members vote to accept the offer, the agreement could set a precedent for other provincial public-sector unions also trying to negotiate new contracts. Some post-secondary employees have also settled for 12 per cent raises over four years, he said. The Alberta Teachers' Association's 51,000 members are in a position to strike with 72 hours notice. Unionized Alberta government workers are in mediation. An Aug. 8 update on the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) website says if this round of negotiations is unsuccessful, they will serve strike notice on or before Sept. 6 and walk off the job 72 hours later. "They have been the most willing and most vocal about their willingness to go on strike," said Foster, who added that the union has spent the summer preparing members for a possible strike. AUPE health-care workers have also been without a contract since April 2024 and have asked for the appointment of a mediator.
Geek Wire
28 minutes ago
- Geek Wire
Photos: Inside the Allen Institute for AI's new HQ in Seattle's first mass-timber office building
The view from one of Ai2's outdoor patios, overlooking Lake Union and the Seattle skyline. (Photos by Todd Bishop, GeekWire) It was a big news week for Seattle's Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2), including the announcement of a new AI robotics initiative and a landmark grant from Nvidia and the National Science Foundation to lead the creation of the future AI backbone for U.S. scientific research. But the nonprofit research institute also reached another milestone in recent weeks: moving into its new 50,000-square-foot headquarters in Seattle's first large-scale mass-timber commercial building. A lobby seating area at Ai2's new headquarters in Northlake Commons. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) The new Ai2 space, in the Northlake Commons project on the north shore of Lake Union, is now the central gathering and workspace for the organization and its team of about 225 people. Ai2 occupies one floor of the five-story building. It's a short drive up the road from Ai2's prior headquarters, and within walking or biking distance of the University of Washington, where many of Ai2's researchers are also affiliated with the UW Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Mass timber is an engineered wood product made by binding layers of wood together into strong, large structural panels and beams, providing the strength of steel or concrete with a lower carbon footprint. The mass-timber elements are visible throughout the space and common areas of the building. An outdoor meeting area at the Northlake Commons building. The space includes large meeting rooms, private call rooms, a podcast and video studio, large doors that open up to outside patios on warm days, and a dining area and gathering space with sweeping views of Lake Union and downtown. The interior design deliberately avoids a traditional 'sea of desks' layout in favor of smaller groupings of workstations where researchers can collaborate while remaining connected through walkways and sight lines. There's even enough space for a simulated home environment in the Ai2 robotics lab, including two kitchens, allowing researchers to test their latest AI robotics technology in conditions that mimic a real-world household. The Ai2 logo in the lobby of the new headquarters. Northlake Commons was designed by Seattle-based architect Weber Thompson and built by general contractor Swinerton. News of the Ai2 lease was announced in July 2024. The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) is separate from the AI2 Incubator, which spun off from the non-profit and has its own new waterfront home, AI House, at Pier 70 on Elliott Bay. Keep scrolling for more pictures from inside the new Ai2 space. The view across the open-air courtyard at Northlake Commons, the mass-timber building that now houses Ai2's new headquarters. (GeekWire Photos / Todd Bishop) A grouping of workstations inside the new Ai2 headquarters. The entrance to a new podcast and video studio at the Ai2 headquarters. A large common area overlooking Lake Union. The Ai2 logo inside the common room of the new headquarters. RELATED STORY: Allen Institute for AI lands $152M from Nvidia and NSF to lead national AI project
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New type of supernova detected as black hole causes star to explode
(Corrects reference to Gagliano to lead author in paragraph 3 instead of co-author) By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Astronomers have observed the calamitous result of a star that picked the wrong dance partner. They have documented what appears to be a new type of supernova, as stellar explosions are known, that occurred when a massive star tried to swallow a black hole with which it had engaged in a lengthy pas de deux. The star, which was at least 10 times as massive as our sun, and the black hole, which had a similar mass, were gravitationally bound to one another in what is called a binary system. But as the distance separating them gradually narrowed, the black hole's immense gravitational pull appears to have distorted the star - stretching it out from its spherical shape - and siphoned off material before causing it to explode. "We caught a massive star locked in a fatal tango with a black hole," said astrophysicist Alexander Gagliano of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lead author of the study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal. "After shedding mass for years in a death spiral with the black hole, the massive star met its finale by exploding. It released more energy in a second than the sun has across its entire lifetime," Gagliano added. The explosion occurred about 700 million light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). "The gravitational pulls of the two objects were actually similar because we think they had similar masses. But the star was much larger, so it was in the process of engulfing the black hole as the black hole pulled material off of it. The star was large but puffy, and the black hole was small but mighty. The black hole won out in the end," Gagliano said. The researchers are not certain of the exact mechanism that caused the supernova. "It's unclear if the distortion triggers an instability that drives the collapse of the star, and then the leftover stellar material gets rapidly eaten by the black hole, or if the black hole completely pulls the star apart before it goes supernova," said Harvard University astrophysicist and study co-author Ashley Villar. "The star has been pulled and morphed by the black hole in complex ways," Villar added. The binary system started out with two massive stars orbiting each other as cosmic companions. But one of the two stars reached the end of its natural life cycle and exploded in a supernova, and its core collapsed to form a black hole, an extraordinarily dense object with gravity so strong that not even light can escape. "This event reveals that some supernovae can be triggered by black hole companions, giving us new insights into how some stars end their lives," Villar said. Stars that are at least eight times as massive as the sun appear destined to end their lives with a supernova. Those with a mass at least 20 times that of the sun will form a black hole after the explosion. An artificial intelligence algorithm designed to scan for unusual explosions in the cosmos in real time first detected the beginnings of the explosion, providing an alert that enabled astronomers to carry out follow-up observations immediately. By the time the explosion was completed, it had been observed by numerous ground-based and space-based telescopes. "Our AI algorithm allowed us to launch a comprehensive observational study early enough to really see the full picture for the first time," Gagliano said. Observations of the star dating to four years before the supernova revealed bright emissions that the astronomers believe were caused when the black hole guzzled material sucked off the star. For instance, the star's outer hydrogen layer appears to have been ripped off, exposing the helium layer below. The researchers observed bright emissions in the explosion's aftermath as the black hole consumed leftover stellar debris. In the end, the black hole became more massive and more powerful. Systems grouping two or more companions are quite common. Some of these multiples have a black hole as one of the companions. "Our takeaway is that the fates of stars are incredibly impacted by their companion - or companions - in life. This event gives us an exciting window into how dramatically black holes can impact the deaths of massive stars," Gagliano said. Solve the daily Crossword
