Siblings With Heart Disease May Mean You Have It Too
(AXcess News) Framingham, MA - According to researcherswith the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study, the risk of heart disease is 45% higher for brothers and sisters whose siblings have heart disease, which should be a wake-up call for middle aged people.
The Framingham Heart Study was reported in the Dec. 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Joanne Murabito, M.D., Sc.M., of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study and her colleagues analyzed 2,475 participants in the Offspring Study, a spin-off involving children of the original participants. For this analysis, Dr. Murabito and colleagues studied participants who were 30 or older, free of cardiovascular disease at baseline, and had at least one sibling in the study.
Participants were followed for eight years, with regular physical examinations. All cardiovascular disease events were validated by cardiologists or neurologists.
Compared with those whose siblings did not have cardiovascular disease, participants in the sibling cardiovascular disease group were older at baseline and had a higher prevalence of all the traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors, except current smoking, found Dr. Murabito and colleagues.
During follow-up, there were 329 incident cardiovascular disease events, including 11 coronary deaths, eight other cardiovascular disease deaths, 99 nonfatal cases of myocardial infarction or coronary insufficiency, 106 cases of angina pectoris, 59 strokes or transient ischemic attacks, and 46 cases of intermittent claudication, the study found.
After adjusting for age, sex, and cardiovascular disease risk factors, the researchers found that the sibling cardiovascular disease group had a significantly increased risk for cardiac events: The odds ratio was 1.45, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 1.10 to 1.91.