BACKGROUND/AIMS: Although several studies have claimed that Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is related to cardiovascular disease, it is still uncertain whether it is related to the acute process or the chronic inflammatory atherosclerotic changes. The aim of our study was to confirm the impact of active H. pylori infection on coronary heart disease, acute inflammatory factors, and the coagulation factors. METHODS: A total of 94 patients completed questionnaires about occupation, smoking, past medical history, and socio-economic status. The serum of the subjects was drawn for a low density lipoprotein test, white blood cell count, C reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocysteine, prothrombin time, activated partial thrombin time, plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1, and tissue-type plasminogen test. All of the subjects underwent a coronary angiography and an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for the diagnosis of coronary heart disease and H. pylori infection, respectively. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in acute inflammatory factors, coagulation factors, atheromatous burden score, and Jeopardy score between the H. pylori-infected group and non-infected group. Odds ratio of H. pylori infection on coronary heart disease was 2.59 (95% CI, 0.80-6.17), but it diminished below 1.0 (95% CI, 0.14-1.36) after adjusting for conventional risk factors such as age, gender, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, body mass index and socio-economic status. CONCLUSIONS: H. pylori infection is not an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease, and it does not alter the coagulation system or evoke the systemic inflammatory response.
Aged ; Coronary Disease/blood/*microbiology ; Female ; Helicobacter Infections/*complications ; *Helicobacter pylori ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Risk Factors

OBJECTIVETo determine the relationship of chlamydia pneumonia (CP) infection and coronary heart disease (CHD).

METHODSStudies published before 2004 that had reported on correlations between CHD and CP were collected. Studies were sorted into four sorts according to different testing methods. We determined to use either fixed effect model or random effect model according to the result of heterogeneity test. Meta-analysis was done by RevMan 4.2.

RESULTSTotally 29 studies were included into the review. The odd ratio (OR) to review all literature enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), dot-immunogdd filtration assay (DIGFA), and micro-immunofluorescence (MIF) was 4.00 (3.07, 5.22), 2.86 (1.89, 4.32), 14.89 (1.46, 151.57), and 4.46 (3.15, 6.32).

CONCLUSIONCP infection is associated with CHD, CP infection may be one of the risk factors of CHD.

Antibodies, Bacterial ; blood ; Chlamydia Infections ; Chlamydophila pneumoniae ; Coronary Disease ; microbiology ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Humans ; Risk Factors