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Cardiovascular Complications of Gastrointestinal Diseases
Juliana de Castro Solano Martins1, Liliana Sampaio Costa Mendes2 and Andre Rodrigues Duraes3*
1Medical Student at Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Brazil
2Supervisor of the Gastroenterology Medical Residency Program at Hospital de Base do Distrito Federal, Specialist in Gastroenterology by the Brazilian Federation of Gastroenterology, Brazil
3Department of Cardiology in Universidade Estadual da Bahia (UNEB), Specialist in Cardiology by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, Brazil
- *Corresponding Author:
- Andre Rodrigues Duraes
Department of Cardiology in Universidade Estadual da Bahia (UNEB)
Specialist in Cardiology by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, Brazil
Tel: 55 75 3262-7500
E-mail: andreduraes@gmail.com
Received date: September 11, 2015, Accepted date: October 16, 2015, Published date: October 24, 2015
Citation: Martins JCS, Mendes LSC, Duraes AR (2015) Cardiovascular Complications of Gastrointestinal Diseases. J Gastrointest Dig Syst 5:351. doi:10.4172/2161-069X.1000351
Copyright: © 2015 Martins JCS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
It is known that 10% of all deaths in the United States have gastrointestinal disorders as their underlying cause. As many of these patients present with cardiovascular symptoms apparently related to their primary disorder, the relation between the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems has been under intensive investigation. Observational studies and case reports have suggested that gastroesophageal reflux disease can lead to atrial fibrillation and this relation is considered to implicate multiple mechanisms as inflammation, autoimmunity and exacerbated autonomic stimulation. Furthermore, current literature understands that atherosclerosis is a result of both traditional (e.g. diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia) and non-traditional risk factors, such as chronic inflammation due to chronic infections (e.g. Helicobacter pylori and Hepatitis C virus infections) and chronic inflammatory diseases (e.g. inflammatory bowel disease). Numerous evidences of systolic and diastolic ventricular dysfunction have been reported in cirrhotic patients, being called cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and characterized by blunted contractile responsiveness to stress, diastolic dysfunction and electrophysiological abnormalities in the absence of underlying cardiac disease. Metabolic liver diseases are also related to cardiovascular injury through iron or copper overload in hemochromatosis and Wilson’s disease, respectively. This article intends to review cardiovascular complications due to primary gastrointestinal disorders and their potential physiopathological mechanisms, along with alert physicians of these still neglected gastrointestinal diseases presentations.
