Study: Miscarriage/heart attack link?

HEIDELBERG, Germany, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Women who have suffered multiple miscarriages may face an increased risk of a heart attack later in their lives, German researchers say.

A study of more than 11,500 women aged between their mid-30s and mid-60s found that women who had more than three miscarriages had a five-fold increase in risk of heart problems, the BBC reported.

The relatively young age of the women in the study meant overall risk remained low, but miscarriages could alert doctors to future problems, researchers at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg said.

A history of miscarriage should be noted by doctors as an "important indicator" when trying to work out whether a woman was likely to suffer heart problems in middle-age and beyond, the researchers said.

Other studies have suggested an increase in heart disease risk among women who had pregnancy complications, which included pre-eclampsia and premature birth alongside miscarriage, a British researchers says.

"It is possible that there is some common predisposing risk factor for both miscarriage and heart disease," Gordon Smith from Cambridge University says.

"During pregnancy, it is manifested by increased risk of miscarriage, and later in life, it manifests itself as an increase in heart disease risk."

A spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation said that it was hard to draw firm conclusions from the German study.

"While this is certainly an interesting observation it gives no proven explanation for an increase in heart attack risk," she said.

"It's not simply a case of saying multiple miscarriages increase your risk of a heart attack -- lots of other factors come into play."