How to Find the Genetic Causes of Heart Disease
Heart disease and other forms of cardiovascular disease frequently have a strong genetic component. Certain genes can either lead to abnormally high cholesterol, blood pressure or genetic obesity, all of which can lead to heart disease. Heart disease can occur due to small bits of cholesterol that can block coronary blood vessels or due to the heart having to work abnormally hard to pump blood.
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Instructions
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How to Find the Genetic Causes of Heart Disease
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Check your family history. Often, people with genetic heart disease have several family members with a history of cardiovascular disease. Identifying parents, grandparents, siblings, and aunts and uncles who have had heart attacks or strokes can help in identifying possible genetic causes of heart disease.
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Eliminate environmental factors, including smoking, alcohol abuse and a poor diet. These factors can, regardless of genetics, lead to heart disease. If you or any relatives with heart trouble have environmental factors that can lead to heart disease, it may cause genetic analysis to falsely identify genetic causes of heart disease.
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Get a genetic test for your cholesterol risk. There are certain genetic factors, such as an abundance of the apolipoprotein E-II, which cause you to have abnormally high cholesterol and an increased risk of atherosclerosis. These genes can cause you to have abnormally high cholesterol, which can be a genetic cause for heart disease.
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Get tested for diabetes. Diabetes also has a genetic component, and the high blood sugar that results from diabetes can lead to heart disease and problems with red blood cells, which can also cause heart attacks.
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Get tested for gene-related obesity. Recently, multiple genes have been discovered that can lead to an abnormally low metabolism and a propensity for diabetes. This can also be a genetic cause for heart disease.
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