Women with a documented HPV infection had a 7 percent higher risk of developing new cardiovascular disease than uninfected women, according to a Swedish national registry study of about 3 million women. The researchers who produced that number went out of their way to tell women not to be alarmed by it.
The study, led by a Karolinska Institutet team and published in PLOS Medicine, is the largest examination yet of a question that has circulated in cardiology for more than a decade, as summarized by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. It also produces smaller effect estimates than earlier work, which is the more useful finding for anyone trying to decide what this means for them.
