How your genes can increase your risk for heart-related conditions

Genes determine every aspect of our body, from our physical appearance to our internal systems. For this reason, a variation in a single gene can alter this mechanism and change the body’s processes, leading to certain health disorders that are passed from parents to children.

Here, Dr Jonathan Byrne, leading interventional cardiologist, provides an expert insight into the role of genes (as well as other factors) in the development of conditions related to the heart, including how the study of genomes can help to prevent the onset of future heart diseases, among other important points.

What is the prevalence of heart conditions in the UK?

Coronary heart disease is the second leading cause of mortality in England, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics for July 2022.

Regardless of the breakthrough developments for the treatment of heart diseases - aspirin, drugs that lower cholesterol such as statins, and even medical technological devices such as pacemakers – cardiovascular diseases are winning the war on health, causing a higher number of deaths every year.

Inherited heart diseases are partly responsible, because in reality every one of us is at risk one way or another. Genes and external factors are but two pieces of a larger puzzle.

What is cardiovascular genomics? What can it reveal about heart-related conditions?

As opposed to the study of a single gene, genomics focuses on the entire genome. In relation to heart diseases, cardiovascular genomics is the study of gene interaction that leads to the onset of heart-related diseases.

Thanks to cardiovascular genomics, we now know that the development of cardiovascular diseases is the result of both a person’s genetic predisposition to inherit cardiac diseases and his/her susceptibility to acquired conditions (nature), in addition to external factors such as exercise, diet and exposure to detrimental agents (nurture).

What is the role of diet?

Diet has a notable influence on health. This is why, depending on our diets, our health can improve or worsen. It is such the effect of diet that depending on your personal genomics, each food or nutrient consumed can have a positive or negative effect on your body.

Characterised by high quantities of fat, meat, sugar and the consumption of fast food, the ‘Western-type’ diet is linked to excess weight gain and obesity. This is due to the multiple types of food included in the diet, which add to inflammation within the body. Inflammation, in turn, activates potentially-damaging genes.

Nevertheless, everyone can find out what diet he/she should follow with genetic testing for cardiovascular diseases, to reduce the possibility of accidentally activating these harmful genes.

A good diet to follow, for example, is the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in olive oil. A study has found out that the risk factors for heart diseases and strokes are greatly reduced when people only add four tablespoons of olive oil to their diets. People can discover if they are good candidates for the Mediterranean diet or a different diet that suits their genes more efficiently, with the use of cardiovascular genomics.

If you are at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and wish to seek expert assessment and diagnosis for it, don’t hesitate to visit Dr Byrne’s Top Doctors profile today.