Genetic mutations signpost inherited heart risk

Research presented at the American Society of Human Genetics 2012 meeting has shown that a specific set of variants of genes are responsible for more than 10% of inherited heart disease. The researchers, from the CardioGramPlusC4D consortium, screened 63,746 patients with coronary artery disease and found 20 new mutations involved in heart disease, adding to the 27 DNA variants already known. This suggests that heart disease risk, like many other complex disorders, is based on the interactions of several different genes, and these findings could lead to better drugs for heart disease. Press release