The effect of male genes on heart disease

Name: Matt S. Posting Number: #1

Topic: Health

Article Title: Male Genes May Explain Higher Heart Disease Risk

Author: Gina Kolata

Publication Name: NY Times

Publication Date: 2/8/12

Length of Article: Words 605 / 3 Pages

Two out of every three heart-disease patients are male; furthermore, heart disease strikes males an average of 10 t0 15 years earlier than females. The answer was never really known until now. Last Wednesday in an article published in the Lancet, a group of researchers at University of Leicester in Britain conducted studies that show that two variants of a cluster of genes on the Y chromosome affect the rate of heart disease. Those with one of the variants had a 50% increased risk of contracting heart disease than those with the other variant. This increase in percentage of risk is not affected by external factors such as cholesterol levels, smoking and diabetes. The researchers have not yet found the exact gene cluster that causes this, and they do not yet know if the studies are 100% accurate however they say that the studies can be replicated. The chief leader of the study, Dr. Maciej Tomaszewski says that he cannot fully explain the male disadvantage in heart disease. Dr. Miller at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester says that over the history of mankind, there have been men who have "done all the wrong things" to cause heart disease and haven't had any signs of heart disease whatsoever, and there have also been men that lived healthy lives and did nothing wrong but died of a heart attack. She concludes that there must have been some inherited factors that caused these people to die. Dr. Tomaszewski and his colleagues were surprised by the magnitude of the increase of risk of heart disease simply because of one small gene cluster.

In conclusion, this study provides us with the information that heart-disease isn't something that is entirely caused by a person's lifestyle. Up until this point in time, many heart-disease researchers have ignored the Y-chromosome as a possible cause. Also, it also means that men should really pay attention for signs of heart-disease since they could still have it even if they live a perfectly healthy lifestyle. We who have the Y-chromosome shouldn't necessarily start panicking about this, as this study was the only one done so far to prove this theory; the evidence could have been skewed by an experimental error or something of this sort. According to Dr. Rader, much more research needs to be done in order to validate this.

I personally wouldn't worry too much about this since this is only one study that has yet to be proved.