• Posted May 9, 2025

Women With Autoimmune Disease At Greater Risk For Heart-Related Death

FRIDAY, May 9, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Women with common autoimmune inflammatory diseases are more likely than men to die from heart disease, a new study says.

Women with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or systemic sclerosis have a 50% higher heart disease-related death rate than men, researchers reported May 5 in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

“Our study highlights the significant burden of cardiovascular disease in patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, which disproportionately affect women,” said senior researcher Dr. Heba Wassif, director of cardio-rheumatology at the Cleveland Clinic.

“It is critical to screen for and address cardiovascular risk factors early, at the time of diagnosis and periodically thereafter,” she said in a news release.

Women are two to three times more likely than men to develop rheumatoid arthritis, and about nine times more likely to develop lupus, researchers said in background notes.

Systemic sclerosis also is more common among women than men, researchers said. That autoimmune disease involves the tightening and hardening of skin, potentially affecting the digestive tract, blood vessels and internal organs.

For the study, researchers analyzed data for more than 127,000 heart disease-related deaths among more than 281,000 deaths associated with the three common autoimmune diseases between 1999 and 2020.

Overall, heart disease deaths declined for people with these autoimmune disorders, from 3.9 to 2.1 per 100,000 in women and from 1.7 to 1.2 per 100,000 in men between 1999 and 2020, results show.

However, the death rate remains higher among women compared to men, despite the overall reduction in deaths.

Stroke and clogged arteries were the main causes of heart-related death in autoimmune patients, and women died from both at higher rates than men.

Women also were more than twice as likely to die from irregular heart rhythms or cardiac arrest, researchers found.

People with rheumatoid arthritis had the highest heart-related death rate, results show.

“There is a common perception that people with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases primarily die from infections or kidney disease,” lead study author Dr. Issam Motairek, an internal medicine resident at Cleveland Clinic, said in a news release.

“However, our study revealed that one-third of deaths in this population were due to cardiovascular disease, highlighting the significant burden of heart disease in these patients,” he added.

“This study reinforces the need to investigate drivers of these disparities between women and men and how to improve treatment for patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases,” Motairek concluded.

More information

The Arthritis Foundation has more about rheumatoid arthritis.

SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, May 6, 2025