MONDAY, Sept. 21, 2026 — Lupus patients can significantly decrease their risk of heart disease if they consistently take their medication, a new study says.

People with lupus had a higher risk of heart disease if they didn’t consistently take hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the most common treatment for the disease, researchers report in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

“This study underscores the need for targeted interventions that both improve long-term adherence to HCQ and help patients achieve the target HCQ blood levels,” lead researcher Dr. Shivani Garg, director of the Yale Lupus Program, said in a news release.

“It can be difficult for patients to commit to taking medication every single day for the rest of their lives,” Garg said. “By giving patients clear data about their HCQ level and how it impacts their heart health and risk for flare-ups, we can help them make better-informed decisions about their medicines and care.”

Lupus involves the body’s immune system attacking its own tissues, causing inflammation that can affect joints, skin and blood cells, as well as organs like the kidneys, brain, heart and lungs.

Because of this, lupus patients have much higher odds of heart disease compared to the general public, researchers said in background notes.

For example, young women with lupus are up to 50 times more likely to have a heart attack than those without the disease, researchers said.

Hydroxychloroquine is a cornerstone in lupus management, researchers said.

The drug is known to decrease lupus flares and lower the amount of damage that the disease does to the body over time, according to the Lupus Foundation of America.

“We have always thought of HCQ as a foundational therapy, but we didn’t have clear data showing if maintaining levels within the therapeutic range, defined by our team and others, has a real-world effect on lowering the risk of having a heart attack or stroke,” Garg said.

For the new study, researchers studied a group of 248 lupus patients. The team assessed the patients’ risk of heart disease using a popular American Heart Association tool and compared this risk against how diligent they’d been in taking their hydroxychloroquine.

Researchers tested each person’s blood levels of HCQ and tracked their prescription refills, both of which provided insight into how faithfully patients had been taking their daily meds.

Results showed that people with very low blood levels of HCQ and fewer prescription refills had a higher risk of heart disease within one to two years.

The added risk wasn’t shockingly high — just under 7% on average for people who didn’t take their HCQ as prescribed from the outset, and nearly 6% for those who wound up with less adherence to their meds by the end of the study.

But Garg said any increase in risk — no matter how slight — matters a lot because the patients were relatively young, with an average age of 47. This risk could have long-term consequences for patients’ heart health.

“It gives an actionable next step for the clinicians and patients to optimize HCQ use and dosing to prevent a heart attack or stroke,” Garg said. “These findings clearly give another reason for monitoring HCQ blood levels at the point of care instead of using the standard one-size-fits-all dosing."

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on lupus.

SOURCES: Yale School of Medicine, news release, Sept. 4, 2026; Arthritis Care & Research, Sept. 4, 2026