Genetic Heart Disease Risk Eased by Healthy Habits, Study Finds

A new study has found that by living right you can lower your risk of heart disease , no matter how high your genetic risk. Living right means not smoking, eating a healthy balanced diet, and exercising moderately. Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, the director of the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital said, “DNA is not destiny; it is not deterministic for this disease. You do have control over the problem, even if you have been dealt a bad genetic hand.” The scientists found that genes can double the risk of heart disease, but with a healthy lifestyle you can split that. But in return, a horrible lifestyle can erase almost half of the benefits of good genetics. There were multiple groups with a high number of participants that were analyzed, which has never been done before to this degree. Overall, the experiment showed that it’s not a situation where it’s either nature or nurture, it is both. They developed a genetic score based on the 50 genes associated with heart disease. A lifestyle score was also developed based on if people smoked, ate well, exercised, or were obese. The ideal lifestyle score would have at least three or the four elements. The biggest change you could make is going from a terrible lifestyle to one that is moderately positive. Basically, its all up to you to have a healthy lifestyle so you can live a long life.