Gene interacts with stress and leads to heart disease in some people

I suggest learning to meditate, and practice healthier thinking. Because of genetics or upbringing, we might have a tendency toward negative thought reactions, but we can choose to minimize such thoughts when they come to us, replacing them with more positive and rational thoughts, including towards ourselves.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/dumc-giw093014.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 1-Oct-2014

Contact: Sarah Avery
Duke University Medical Center
Gene interacts with stress and leads to heart disease in some people

A new genetic finding from Duke Medicine suggests that some people who are prone to hostility, anxiety and depression might also be hard-wired to gain weight when exposed to chronic stress, leading to diabetes and heart disease.

An estimated 13 percent of people, all of whom are Caucasian, might carry the genetic susceptibility, and knowing this could help them reduce heart disease with simple interventions such as a healthy diet, exercise and stress management.

"Genetic susceptibility, psychosocial stress and metabolic factors act in combination to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease," said Elizabeth Hauser, Ph.D. director of Computational Biology at the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute. Hauser is senior author of a study detailing the findings in the Oct. 1, 2014, online issue of the European Journal of Human Genetics.

•••••

"With further analysis, we found a significant pathway from high chronic life stress to wide hip circumference, to high blood glucose and diabetes, to increased cardiovascular disease, notably atherosclerosis," said Abanish Singh, Ph.D., a researcher in computational biology at Duke and the study's lead author. "But we found this only in people who were carriers of the EBF1 single-nucleotide polymorphism, and this was limited to participants who were white."

The researchers reproduced their findings using data from another study, the Framingham Offspring Cohort.

"These findings suggest that a stress reduction intervention, along with diet and exercise, could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and may be most effective in individuals with this specific genotype," said Redford Williams, M.D. one of the study's senior authors and director of Duke's Behavioral Medicine Research Center.

•••••