Researchers have found that Chlamydia which has impact on immune system can cause coronary artery disease and miscarriages. These two problems may seem unrelated but researchers found an important link between this two conditions.

Chlamydia pneumoniae is a kind of microbe that causes pneumonia and bronchitis and unlike other bacteria it uses the same type of cholesterol for it’s metabolism as human cells. When bacteria invades tissue, human immune system reacts by releasing cells called macrophages that have ability to destroy it. But, it seems that when immune system is infected with C. pneumoniae , it takes cholesterol from macrophage cell membrane to its own and cause a damage to macrophage which causes it’s inability to move. When macrophages are immobile they accumulate in the walls of blood vessel and set the stage for artherosclerosis.

Researchers also found that Chlamydia can cause spontaneous abortions or miscarriages because trophoblasts which are protective cells in placenta during early stages of pregnancy act like macrophages and there lays the link between Chlamydia and miscarriages. Only in this case the attacked cell is a trophoblast instead of a macrophage.