A new study reveals that a history of kidney stones has been linked with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in women but not in men.
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Pietro Manuel Ferraro, M.D., of Columbus-Gemelli Hospital, Rome, and colleagues analyzed the relation between kidney stones and risk of incident CHD for individuals with a history of kidney stones.
The analysis included 45,748 men and 196,357 women in the United States without a history of CHD at baseline who were participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) (45,748 men 40-75 years of age; follow-up from 1986 to 2010), Nurses' Health Study I (NHS I) (90,235 women 30-55 years of age; follow-up from 1992 to 2010), and Nurses' Health Study II (NHS II) (106,122 women 25-42 years of age; follow-up from 1991 to 2009).
The diagnoses of kidney stones and CHD were updated biennially during follow-up. Coronary heart disease was defined as fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI; heart attack) or coronary revascularization.
Of a total of 242,105 participants, 19,678 reported a history of kidney stones.
After up to 24 years of follow-up in men and 18 years in women, 16,838 incident cases of CHD occurred.
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The study was published in the journal JAMA.
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