Heart failure may run in family, study hints

By Will Boggs, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The children of parents with
heart failure have an increased likelihood of developing the
condition themselves, new findings from the Framingham
Offspring Study suggest.

“If our findings are confirmed, there would be added
justification for adding heart failure to the list of
conditions that one can inquire about when obtaining family
history of medical disorders from patients,” Dr. Vasan S.
Ramachandran told Reuters Health.

Ramachandran, from Boston University School of Medicine,
and colleagues investigated whether a parental history of heart
failure increased the risk of impaired function of the left
ventricle of the heart — its main pumping chamber — or overt
heart failure in the offspring, using data from study
participants.

The offspring of parents with heart failure had higher
rates of increased left ventricular dysfunction and dimensions
than did offspring whose parents did not have heart failure,
the investigators report.

During a 20-year follow-up, the presence of parental heart
failure was associated with higher rates of heart failure in
the offspring, the researchers found. The adjusted rate of
heart failure was 70 percent higher than in those without
parental heart failure, according to the report, published in
The New England Journal of Medicine.

Not surprisingly, the presence of heart failure in both
parents increased the risk of heart failure in the offspring
more than did heart failure in only one parent, the report
indicates.

“Our demonstration of an increased familial risk of heart
failure suggests, but does not establish, a causal relation of
genetic factors to the disease process,” the team concludes.

“We have several ongoing studies evaluating the genetic
underpinnings of heart failure … including but not limited to
studies of select candidate genes,” Ramachandran added.

SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine, July 13, 2006.