There is new research that says analyzing genetic test data may help identifying people who are at risk of having a heart attack at an early age. This thing can be possible if you start knowing your cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart gene score.
According to the South China Morning Post, researchers find a new way to measure "millions of small genetic variations" that can eventually lead to disease. If these genes are calculated, they will have a chance to know someone's stand to have the most usual kind of heart disease and other four serious illnesses.
"What I foresee is in five years; each person will know this risk number, this 'polygenic risk score,' similar to the way each person knows his or her cholesterol," the researchers' leader from Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School Dr. Sekar Kathiresan said. They believed about 25 million Americans might have tripled the risk of an average person to have coronary heart disease. This is still possible if they don't have visible signs of the disease yet, like high cholesterol.
However, it was also explained that if a person got a bad score, that didn't necessarily mean that he/she already got a disease. That just indicated his/her genetic composition had increased the chance to have that illness. This also counted as a warning that he/she should start to take care of himself/herself.
Kathiresan advised there are many things people can do to lower their risk of having any disease. This ranged from dieting, exercising, cholesterol medication, and not smoking.
On the other hand, having a low-risk score also does not mean the person will not have any kind of disease. Having an unhealthy diet and lifestyle can lead to the development of illnesses, affecting good genes.
However, heart disease and genetics experts, who were uninvolved with the research, found this new way "exciting" because of its capacity, per The New York Times. "The results should be eye-opening for cardiologists," director of cardiovascular research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Dr. Charles C. Hong said.
Unfortunately, this thing only works out to people with European ancestry. So Hong questions if another score like this will be in the works to use for the majority of patients in the world that are not white.
Hong even gave an example when his friend, who was super-fit, a marathon runner, and never smoked, died from a heart attack. This case puzzled doctors who hoped to get a better grasp of how genetics worked to help prevent deaths like this.
