Posted on 11/10/2005 5:08:47 PM PST by neverdem
An Icelandic genetics company says it has detected a version of a gene that more than triples the risk of heart attacks in African-Americans, a finding that is likely to sharpen the debate about the merits of race-based medicine.
The company, DeCode Genetics, first found the variant gene among Icelanders and then looked for it in three American populations, in Philadelphia, Cleveland and Atlanta.
Among Americans of European ancestry, the variant is quite common, but it causes only a small increase in risk, about 16 percent. But among African-Americans, while the variant gene was found in only 6 percent of those tested, they are 3.5 times as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who carry the normal version of the gene, a team of DeCode scientists led by Anna Helgadottir reports in an article released online today by the journal Nature Genetics.
Kari Stefansson, the company's chief executive, said he would consult with the Association of Black Cardiologists and others as to whether to test a new heart attack drug specifically in a population of African-Americans. The drug, DG031, inhibits a different but closely related gene variant and is about to be tested in the final state of clinical trials required for the Food and Drug Administration's approval.
Last year a drug called BiDil evoked mixed reactions after it was shown to sharply reduce heart attack in African-Americans. The drug, invented by Jay N. Cohn, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota, prompted objections that it revived discredited notions of race as a separate biological category.
Geneticists agree that the medically important issue is not race itself but the genes that predispose a person to disease. But it may often be useful for physicians to take race into account because the predisposing genes for many diseases follow racial...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bush's fault.
It's STILL evil whitey's fault. Bush in particular.
Ping!
Signs of Crocodile From Dinosaur Era Are Found
National Geographic Society, via Reuters
The fossil of a marine crocodile, bottom, and a digitized composite image.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unrelated link as they see fit.
If this condition is more common among African-Americans, it may be also more common among Africans...so researchers ought to start checking people in Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, and other countries in that part of Africa.
Like with sickle-cell anemia, where there is a medical advantage gained from being a carrier of the gene, there may be some advantage to carrying the gene or genes responsible for this.
Shhh! Don't tell jesse, or calypso louie, or barack, or…
Drug Approved for Heart Failure in Black Patients
"To help win over critics, NitroMed got the Association of Black Cardiologists to be a co-sponsor of the trial."
I don't think that's a problem.
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