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Heart Disease: The World's Number One Killer

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 January 2009, 10:00 CST

Heart disease is the number one killer in the world. By 2010, India's population is expected to account for 60 percent of the world's heart disease cases.

One percent of the world's population has a genetic mutation that makes them almost guaranteed to have heart trouble, but in South Asia, the frequency of the mutation reaches four percent.

The mutation on the heart protein gene MYBPC3 was discovered five years ago in two Indian families with cardiomyopathy, but its significance was not realized until a broader study including almost 1,500 people across India was done.

"The mutation leads to the formation of an abnormal protein," Kumarasamy Thangaraj, study leader of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India, was quoted as saying. "Young people can degrade the abnormal protein and remain healthy, but as they get older it builds up and eventually results in the symptoms we see."

One in five forty-year-olds will develop heart failure at some point in their lives. With the identification of the mutation, experts say there is a new glimmer of hope for some of them. Genetic screenings could identify carriers at a young age, who could then adopt healthier lifestyles.

SOURCE: Nature Genetics, published online January 18, 2009

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• Nature Genetics

Source: Ivanhoe

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