DNA reveals men's heart disease risk
Friday, 12 Jan 2007 08:28
DNA clues could help heart disease diagnoses
Middle-aged men with short telomeres – strips of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes – could have a higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than those with long telomeres, a new study has found.
Previous research had found that people with coronary heart disease are more likely to have short telomere length, but the latest study, published in the Lancet medical journal, is the first to argue that telomere length could be a potential predictor for heart disease.
Telomeres become shorter each time a cell divides, acting as a biological clock for living organisms.
Professor Nilesh Samani and colleagues at the University of Leicester measured telomere length in white blood cell DNA of men aged between 45 and 64 already enrolled
in the West of Scotland Primary Prevention Study.
They then compared the telomere lengths of 484 men who went on to develop coronary heart disease with those of 1,058 men who remained disease free.
The research showed that men who developed coronary heart disease had shorter telomeres than those that remained disease free.
Statin treatment was also found to have a significant impact on heart disease risk.
In placebo-treated patients, the risk of coronary heart disease was almost double in those with short telomeres when compared with those with relatively long telomeres.
But patients receiving statins with short telomeres had a substantially reduced risk of heart disease.
Professor Nilesh Samani said that telomere length "could identify individuals who would benefit most from statin treatment".
"Our findings support the hypothesis that differences in biological ageing might contribute to the risk – and variability in age of onset – of coronary heart disease," he added.
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, which funded the study, described the researchers' findings as "important" and "exciting".
"Further research is required to determine whether the length of telomeres could be a practical measure to find patients that would benefit most from preventive treatment for heart disease," he added.
"The results also provide exciting insights into the underlying mechanisms of heart attacks, taking us closer to finding more ways of preventing them from happening."