• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, August 18, 2022
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Family ties: Early cardiac events pose major and different risks in close relatives

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 12, 2021
in Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Alex Dolce, Florida Atlantic University

Family history of early cardiac events in first degree relatives such as a parent or sibling is a major risk factor, especially for premature events. Currently, data on risks in close relatives of patients with a family history of premature heart attacks, chronic stable angina or peripheral vascular disease are sparse.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine in collaboration with an international team of leading scientists in Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland, assembled a consecutive series of 230 patients with premature onset of heart attacks, strokes, angina or peripheral artery disease and a comparison group of apparently healthy men and women during a 24-month period. The comparison group had no family or personal history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and had normal electrocardiograms (ECGs), cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressures and glucose. Researchers defined a premature event as occurring in men 60 years or younger and in women 65 years or younger.

“Our data indicate that early cardiac events pose major and different risks in close relatives,” said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.PH. senior author, the First Sir Richard Doll Professor and senior academic advisor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “Further, since families share more than genes, not surprisingly, these data are compatible with a role for both genetic and environmental factors.”

The data, published in the International Journal of Cardiology, also suggest that first degree relatives of patients with premature heart attacks compared with those presenting with a first episode of chronic stable angina or peripheral vascular disease have a shorter survival time. Patients with heart attacks and chronic stable angina reported significantly higher frequencies of attacks in their first degree relatives than patients with peripheral vascular disease. In contrast, patients with chronic stable angina and peripheral vascular disease reported significantly higher frequencies of chronic stable angina and peripheral vascular disease, respectively, in their first degree relatives compared to patients with heart attacks.

“Family history of early onset events is a major and independent risk factor. Thus, patients with a positive parental or sibling history of premature cardiac events require even more aggressive therapeutic lifestyle changes as well as adjunctive drug therapies of proven benefit,” said Hennekens. “In the United States, Europe and worldwide, most guidelines recommend risk scores for initial clinical assessments, which do not include family history of early events.”

Hennekens formerly served as the first John Snow and the first Braunwald professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His groundbreaking scientific findings have significantly improved the ability to treat as well as prevent CVD, and for more than a decade, he was ranked as the third most widely cited medical researcher in the world by Science Watch.

Hennekens has collaborated for several decades with Felicita Andreotti, M.D., Ph.D., first author and a professor at Catholic University Cardiovascular Medicine in Rome; and brought the data when she served as visiting professor at FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. Their collaborations have included the major role of therapeutic lifestyle changes, especially overweight and obesity and physical inactivity as well as statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, aspirin, converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers.

In this study, Hennekens and Andreotti collaborated with Janet Robishaw, Ph.D., co-author and senior associate dean for research and chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. Andreotti had conducted the study at the Hammersmith Hospital and London Chest Hospital in the United Kingdom.

“Recent advances in human genome sequencing as well as basic and population genetics may help identify specific genotypes that predispose to atherosclerosis, thrombosis, or both,” said Robishaw, a world renowned functional and translational genomics researcher with 30 years of sustained federal funding from the National Institutes of Health who trained under Nobel Laureate Alfred G. Gilman, Ph.D. “Further studies also are needed to identify and quantify the functional role of candidate and marker genes for cardiovascular phenotypes and risk factors, as well as to better understand plausible independent contributions as well as interactions between nature and nurture concerning family history as a major and independent risk factor in cardiovascular disease, especially of premature onset.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for many decades, heart disease has been the leading killer among American men and women, causing approximately 600,000 deaths each year of which about 25 percent present with sudden cardiac death.

###

Study co-authors are Filippo Crea, Ph.D., professor of cardiology at the Catholic University in Rome, Italy; Giuseppe Patti, M.D., Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Italy; Carol C. Shoulders, Ph.D., Queen Mary University of London, England, UK; Eliano Pio Navarese, M.D., Ph.D., Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland; and Attilio Maseri, M.D., of Florence, Italy, an internationally renowned researcher in ischemic heart disease.

About the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine:

FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine is one of approximately 155 accredited medical schools in the U.S. The college was launched in 2010, when the Florida Board of Governors made a landmark decision authorizing FAU to award the M.D. degree. After receiving approval from the Florida legislature and the governor, it became the 134th allopathic medical school in North America. With more than 70 full and part-time faculty and more than 1,300 affiliate faculty, the college matriculates 64 medical students each year and has been nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum. To further FAU’s commitment to increase much needed medical residency positions in Palm Beach County and to ensure that the region will continue to have an adequate and well-trained physician workforce, the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine Consortium for Graduate Medical Education (GME) was formed in fall 2011 with five leading hospitals in Palm Beach County. The Consortium currently has five Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited residencies including internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, psychiatry, and neurology.

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu.

Media Contact
Gisele Galoustian
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2021.03.026

Tags: CardiologyCholesterolGeneticsMedicine/HealthMetabolism/Metabolic DiseasesMortality/LongevityStroke
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

STORK Test

New prenatal test can reduce time, cost of detecting chromosomal abnormalities

August 17, 2022
Three pupils studying with calculators.

Preterm birth’s link with educational attainment explored in U.K. primary and secondary schoolchildren

August 17, 2022

“Nutri-Score” label may counter misleading sugar claims on groceries

August 17, 2022

New research model illuminates how organs communicate with each other

August 17, 2022
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Picture of the horse specimen.

    Ancient DNA clarifies the early history of American colonial horses

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14
  • Fatigue, headache among top lingering symptoms months after COVID

    40 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Ill-fated ‘Into the Wild’ adventurer was victim of unfortunate timing, Oregon State study suggests

    39 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Skin: An additional tool for the versatile elephant trunk

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Urogenital SystemZoology/Veterinary ScienceVaccinesUrbanizationVaccineWeather/StormsVehiclesUniversity of WashingtonViolence/CriminalsVirologyWeaponryVirus

Recent Posts

  • New model describes puffs, slugs, and the role of randomness in transitional turbulence
  • This mouse can’t keep a secret about the “secretome”
  • New prenatal test can reduce time, cost of detecting chromosomal abnormalities
  • Dogs lying in the middle of the road after sunrise at Kewa Pueblo, in no hurry to start the day
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In