Remembrance of a heart attack may be found within epigenetic changes

When a person is having a heart attack, certain genes are activated throughout their body. This warns the body about what is happening, prevents as much damage possible, and helps repair the body after the harm is done.  Researchers have found that following a heart attack, the epigenetics of a person change.  Genes within the epigenome of a person can be turned on or off by certain environmental and other factors, such as a heart attack. The majority of the genes that are altered are found to be related to cardiovascular disease. It is unknown exactly what the genes do in relation to cardiovascular disease. 

There are two possible explanations to this. The first is that the disease might be assisted by the genes that are turned on.  This would increase the rate of cardiovascular disease in a person and harm them within the future. The second explanation is that

they live on as a memory of gene activation associated with the heart attack.

In other words, the patient's body would remember exactly what genes were activated during and after the heart attack. With the performance of more research, geneticists can soon determine if the genes assist in the development of heart attacks or if the genes help prevent the damage of the following heart attack from their "memory." If the epigenetic changes are related to the remembrance of a heart attack, then the prevention of the second heart attack would be greatly increased. The damage from the following heart attack would be dramatically reduced.  Cardiovascular disease is an ongoing problem within America and if more research is conducted about the epigenome of a person after a heart attack, than that field can have potentially shocking breakthroughs.