For many years, doctors have worked hard to fight heart disease by helping people control diabetes, lower blood pressure, and reduce cholesterol.
Medicines like aspirin and statins have helped, but heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the United States. Many people still have heart attacks, even when their usual risk factors are under control.
Now, scientists at the University of Michigan have found a new reason why heart disease may be so hard to stop. They discovered that a protein called suPAR (soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor) might be a hidden cause of heart disease.
This protein is made by the immune system and seems to play a big role in atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is a condition where the arteries become hard and narrow, which increases the chance of heart attacks and strokes.
Atherosclerosis affects over a billion people around the world. It happens when fatty deposits build up in the arteries. Doctors have known that high blood pressure and high cholesterol make this worse, but now we know that suPAR can also cause this condition.
SuPAR comes from the bone marrow and helps control the immune system. When people have high suPAR levels, their immune system stays active all the time. This causes long-term inflammation, which harms the arteries and makes them more likely to get clogged with plaque.
This is the first study to show that suPAR doesn’t just go along with heart disease—it actually causes it when levels are too high.
To study suPAR, the scientists looked at health data from more than 5,000 people who had no heart disease. They found that people with higher suPAR levels were more likely to develop atherosclerosis, even if their cholesterol and blood pressure were normal.
They also looked at the genes of 24,000 people and found that a gene called PLAUR controls how much suPAR a person makes. People with a certain version of this gene had higher suPAR levels and a higher risk of heart disease.
To make their case even stronger, the researchers used a method called Mendelian randomization on data from 500,000 people in the UK. This helped them prove that high suPAR levels are not just linked to heart disease—they actually cause it.
They also tested their findings in mice. The mice with high suPAR levels had more clogged arteries than those with normal levels. This gave solid proof that suPAR harms the arteries.
This discovery is a big deal because current treatments for heart disease don’t lower suPAR. Cholesterol drugs like statins don’t affect this protein. Now scientists are working to find new drugs that can lower suPAR and help people who still face heart problems even when they follow medical advice.
The research also connects suPAR to kidney disease. Many people with kidney disease also have heart disease, and this protein might explain why. Treating suPAR could help with both problems at the same time.
This study was led by Dr. Salim Hayek and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. It could lead to a major change in how we treat heart disease. By targeting suPAR, scientists hope to create better treatments for millions of people at risk of heart attacks and strokes.
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