Heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the United States, even though doctors and scientists have spent many years trying to prevent it.
They’ve focused on controlling known risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Many people take medications like aspirin and statins to lower their risks. But even with these treatments, heart attacks and strokes continue to happen.
Now, researchers at the University of Michigan believe they may have found something new—a hidden cause that had been missed. It’s a protein made by the immune system called suPAR. This protein may play a major role in atherosclerosis, which is when arteries become hard and narrow. This condition leads to heart attacks and strokes.
Atherosclerosis affects more than a billion people around the world. The suPAR protein, short for “soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor,” is made in the bone marrow and helps control how active the immune system is.
Doctors already knew that people with high suPAR levels had a greater chance of getting heart disease. But this new study is the first to show that high levels of suPAR can actually cause atherosclerosis—not just be linked to it.
In the study, scientists looked at data from more than 5,000 people who did not have heart disease. They found that people with high suPAR levels were much more likely to develop atherosclerosis, even if they didn’t have high cholesterol or high blood pressure. This means suPAR could be a separate cause of heart problems.
To learn more, they studied the genes of 24,000 people and found a variant in a gene called PLAUR. This gene controls how much suPAR the body makes. People with this gene variant had higher levels of suPAR and were also more likely to have atherosclerosis.
To make their findings even stronger, the team used genetic data from 500,000 people in the UK Biobank. They found the same link between suPAR levels and heart disease. The results were also confirmed in two other large studies.
The researchers also did experiments with mice. They gave some mice high levels of suPAR, while others had normal levels. T
he mice with more suPAR developed more artery plaques—fatty buildups that block blood flow and can cause heart attacks or strokes. This showed that suPAR doesn’t just show up when people are sick; it can actually cause the disease.
This discovery could completely change how doctors treat heart disease. Medicines like statins lower cholesterol, but they don’t affect suPAR. Now, the research team, led by Dr. Salim Hayek, is working on new treatments that could safely lower suPAR levels. This could help prevent or even reverse atherosclerosis.
The study also explains why kidney disease and heart disease often happen together. Many people with one also have the other. High suPAR levels may be the link that connects them. Around two-thirds of people with kidney disease also have heart disease, and many heart disease patients have kidney problems too.
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. It may lead to new ways to stop heart disease before it starts. By targeting the suPAR protein, doctors could offer better and more personalized care for millions of people.
This research shows how important the immune system is in long-term illnesses. It gives hope that with new treatments, heart disease might be easier to prevent in the future.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that Changing blood pressure readings is a hidden sign of heart disease and common type 2 diabetes drugs may raise heart risk.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about root cause of heart rhythm disorders and Warning signal from the kidneys can predict future heart failure risk.
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