A stress gene has been linked to having a higher risk of dying from a heart attack or heart disease. Heart patients with the genetic change had a 38% increased risk of heart attack or death, say US researchers.
Personalised medicine may lead to better targeting of psychological or drug treatment to those most at risk, they report in PLOS ONE. The study adds to evidence stress may directly increase heart disease risk, says the British Heart Foundation.
A team at Duke University School of Medicine studied a single DNA letter change in the human genome, which has been linked to being more vulnerable to the effects of stress.
They found heart patients with the genetic change had a 38% increased risk of heart attack or death from heart disease after seven years of follow up compared with those without, even after taking into account factors like age, obesity and smoking.
This suggests that stress management techniques and drug therapies could reduce deaths and disability from heart attacks, they say.
Dr Redford Williams, director of the Behavioural Medicine Research Center at Duke University School of Medicine, said the work is the first step towards finding genetic variants that identify people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease.