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Heart Disease in Your Genes

A genetic factor that appears to double people's risk of developing coronary heart disease has been discovered by medical researchers from Auckland University's School of Medicine, in collaboration with researchers from Stanford University in the US.

"The findings help to explain the observation that heart disease tends to run in families. Other proposed genetic factors have only ever been able to explain a tiny fraction of all heart disease, whereas this factor may account for as much as one sixth," says the head of the research team, Professor Stephen McMahon.

McMahon emphasizes the need for replication of the findings before they can be accepted as definite. If other studies confirm the team's results, doctors will be able to begin using the genetic marker to identify people with an in-built predisposition to heart attacks.

The factor does not mean that heart disease is unavoidable.

"It is almost certain that lifestyle factors, such as a high diet in saturated fat are still required for the disease to develop," says McMahon. "It should be possible for people with the genetic predisposition to minimise their risk by reducing other modifiable risk factors for heart disease such as smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure."

The newly discovered factor is one particular form of a gene which controls the production of a substance called angiotensinogen, which is part of a biochemical system that has long been suspected to be important in the development of heart and other vascular diseases.