Having an infection with an oncogenic strain of human papillomavirus (HPV) puts women at greater risk of CVD, a large study suggests.

Data from more than 63,000 Korean women undergoing mandatory health screening between 2011-2016 was used to examine the relationship between testing positive for a high-risk HPV strain and going on to develop CVD.

The prevalence of high-risk (oncogenic) HPV was 7.6% in the cohort, whose members had a mean age of 40 years and a mean BMI of 21.8kg/m².

After adjustment for confounders, including smoking and alcohol consumption, women who had tested positive for high-risk HPV had 25% higher odds of developing CVD over the median follow-up of 4.4 years.