They already have that test:
Posted on 05/04/2007 2:17:34 PM PDT by Triggerhippie
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A treasure hunt for genes has found that up to three-quarters of people of European descent have DNA that raises their risk for heart disease -- and these genes are close to a stretch of DNA linked to diabetes.
The findings, made by two independent groups of researchers, may help explain why so many people have heart disease even if they do not have clear risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
And they could lead to a test to predict the risk of heart disease, the biggest cause of death across the globe.
"I think this is a stunner," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, told reporters.
"It seems like this one place carries all of that weight for two very common and very dangerous diseases."
Both teams used a new method of combing the genome for disease genes called a genome-wide association study, which was not possible until the full human genome was published in 2003. Now scientists can map the DNA of people with a disease, compare them to this template genome or to people without a disease, and find what is different.
The two studies, using 40,000 people, found the same thing -- a stretch of DNA called 9q21 carried certain mutations in people with heart disease. It is an area that had not previously been identified as a gene, which may make it more difficult to determine how it causes disease, scientists said.
Dr. Ruth McPherson of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and colleagues scanned blood samples from 23,000 people.
Anna Helgadottir of Iceland-based deCODE Genetics Inc. in Reykjavik and U.S. colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University in North Carolina tested 17,000 people.
HEART ATTACK RISK
The deCODE team found that about 21 percent of the people they tested had mutations in both copies of this DNA stretch, giving them a 64 percent higher risk of a heart attack than people who carried no copies of the mutation.
McPherson's team said 20 to 25 percent of Caucasians they tested carrying two mutated copies of 9q21 and had a 30 to 40 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease than people without the mutation. Half the people had one copy and they had a 15 percent to 20 percent higher risk of heart disease.
Africans did not appear to carry the mutations, and in African-Americans, the mutations were not associated with heart disease risk, McPherson's team wrote.
The region is not associated with inherited tendencies to have high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
But 9q21 is found near two genes called CDKN2A and CDKN2B, which four international teams of researchers last week reported they had identified in their own genome-wide association study looking for diabetes.
Collins said the coincidence was astonishing.
"We are in the same place in the genome. Here is CDKN2B and 2A, their signal, exactly in the same place as where we found an association for type-2 diabetes," Collins told reporters.
While diabetes raises the risk of heart disease, the heart disease researchers made sure that the patients they scanned did not have diabetes. Collins said researchers will now have to look for a mechanism that explains why a single stretch of DNA could cause both conditions.
In the meantime, deCODE plans to find practical uses.
"DeCODE plans to bundle this discovery with other genetic variants it has linked to risk of heart attack into a DNA-based test for gauging inherited risk of (heart attack)," the company said in a statement.
But, but, but, but, but, but, but...I was told it’s the CIGARETTES!!!
Ladies?
Victimhood rocks!
"DeCODE plans to bundle this discovery with other genetic variants it has linked to risk of heart attack into a DNA-based test for gauging inherited risk of (heart attack)," the company said in a statement.
They already have that test:
Another reason to stop taking statins, if you are not in the high-risk group.
Wow. Maybe we can all die healthy.
That’s great - a DNA test for a disease that we don’t really have any good preventatives or treatments for (stents, angioplasty, bypass surgery, etc, being only bandaids for the real problem). I don’t doubt it will be used to charge those with the gene more for life insurance and to deny medical insurance coverage for “pre-existing conditons”, however.
Women, gays and minorities hardest hit.
.
Oh, and Bush's fault.
That’s about the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. This does NOTHING to ELIMINATE smoking as a major cause.
Thank you.
Statins are BAD. (opinion here)High cholesterol levels are a SYMPTOM, not a cause of heart disease. I worked in a medical office for years, the GP was almost like another father to me. The people he had on Statins more often than not felt like crap all the time and over the years, died or had heart events just as often as the folks NOT on statins. The folks taking Policosonal and CoQ10 had lower "numbers" and didn't feel like crap.
Doesn't that skew the results big time?
I wish the word would get out to all the middle-aged and older people taking these nasty drugs, which endanger their livers and don’t do much for their hearts.
I chime in on every thread I see that concerns Cholestorol. The issue I have is that I can’t point to studies that show how a statin wrecks the liver.
I’m not saying that Statins are all bad. They might only be somewhat bad. heh.
I do know for a fact that people who have “good number” cholesterol can die just as people who have a “bad number”. Granted, bad number folks have more heart events, but again, it goes back to being an indicator, not a cause. Something in our system makes more Cholesterol and something else makes it more sticky. When the two combine in our hearts, we either get it scraped out or we die. Trashing our livers to lower the level of output and make us feel like crap seems to be a very bad idea.
I saw the inside of my heart, arteries, veins with ultrasound. There was no placque at all. Everything was blushing pink a few years ago. And I love cheese like a rat and my cholesterol is very low. I went to the hospital for chest pain - I did something with my left arm that stretched the tendons above where my heart is. It really hurts the day after with muscular-skeletal stuff. I will probably bang up something again. I am only gentle with women. Everything else does what I want it to do:)
That isn’t a very good test either. You should see the number of “fit and healthy” folks who are in need of double and triple bypasses. Fat, skinny, smoker, non-smoker, exercise fiend, couch-potato... I’m not sure if there is any such thing as “risk”.
You draw the losing card, you’re done...
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27 KJV)
The day of your death is already in the appointment book.
It may go a long way in explaining why some victims die so young when there are no obvious reasons for them to succumb to heart disease before they see 50. The real question here is what can anyone really do about it if they test positive for the mutation?
But isn't diabetes (at least type 2) more prevalent in non-European-descendants (who could have some European blood, but only a small amount)?
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