Is Heart Disease in the DNA?

Duke University (North Carolina, USA) researchers offer a potential new explanation for a biological predisposition to heart disease and early death. Beverly Brummett and colleagues conducted genetic analyses on more than 6,100 men and women who were enrolled in a large database of Duke heart catheterization patients.  The researchers observed that those patients carrying a genetic variant (rs6318 allele of the 5HTR2C gene) experienced the highest rates of heart attacks and deaths over an average follow-up period of six years.  Despite adjusting the results for heart disease risk factors such as age, obesity and smoking history, the genetic trait was associated with a 38% greater risk of heart attack and death. Previously, the same research team linked this “stress reaction gene:” to an overproduction of cortisol, a stress hormone that can affect heart risks, finding it in about 17% of men and 3%  of women with heart disease.