Health
Kids whose parents live longer have lower disease risk
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted April 9, 2007
Giving weight to the adage, "Choose your parents well," Framingham Heart Study evidence indicates that people whose parents lived longer were less likely to develop hypertension, high cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease in middle age than were their peers whose parents died before age 85.
Researchers examined 1,697 offspring with an average age of 40 whose parents also had participated in the Framingham study. Their findings appear in the March 12 Archives of Internal Medicine. According to the researchers, this is the first study to examine cardiovascular risk factors in the offspring of longer-lived individuals using independent and validated measurements of risk.
Other studies have relied on self-reports of family history.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/04/09/hlbf0409.htm.
