Symptoms of chronic bronchitis, haemostatic factors, and coronary heart disease risk

Positive association has been suggested between a variety of infections and coronary heart disease. Disturbances in blood coagulation system may form a link between infections and coronary heart disease. The aim of this study was to analyze whether chronic bronchitis, defined by the occurrence of sy mptoms, is associated with selected haemostatic factors in a cross-sectiona l population study of 2379 Finnish men and women aged between 45 and 64 yea rs. Plasma fibrinogen level was significantly higher, 3.70 versus 3.35 g/l (P < 0.001) in men and 3.64 versus 3.34 g/l (P < 0.001) in women, among sub jects with symptoms of chronic bronchitis than among those without symptoms . The association was independent of age, smoking, body mass index, physica l exercise, and alcohol consumption. Also plasminogen was higher among men with symptoms than among those without but the difference disappeared after adjustment for age and smoking. Factor VII coagulant activity and factor V II antigen level did not differ between subjects with and without symptoms. Thus, fibrinogen may be associated with a possible mechanism to link chron ic bronchitis to coronary heart disease risk, even though the causality of the association cannot be verified in a cross-sectional study. (C) 1999 Els evier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.