Health
Children more likely to inherit heart disease from moms than from dads
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 22, 2004
Patients whose mother has cardiac disease are more likely to develop heart problems than those whose father has such illness, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans this month.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore studied nearly 700 middle-aged adults, including many who had a parent who suffered a cardiac event before 60. Nearly 15% of subjects with a maternal history of heart disease had a cardiac event in approximately a 10-year period while only 12.3% of those with a paternal history did. Just over 10% of those with no family history had an event. The reason for this is unknown, but the presenters said physicians who identify patients with family history should pay additional attention to minimizing changeable risk factors. "They should compulsively look for other risk factors, such as hypertension, elevated cholesterol and obesity, and aggressively manage them," said Pamela Ouyang, MD, lead author and an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/03/22/hlbf0322.htm.
