BEIJING, Dec. 28 -- Middle-aged adults whose siblings suffer from cardiovascular disease have 45% higher risk for the same disease, a risk that is greater than if your parents have heart disease, a new study finds.
"We were surprised that sibling cardiovascular heart disease may actually be a stronger risk factor than parental cardiovascular disease," said lead author Dr. Joanne Murabito of the Framingham Heart Study.
Dr. Murabito and colleagues analyzed data from the Framingham Offspring Study, a part of the Framingham Heart Study, a population-based study initiated in 1948 with the offspring cohort initiated in 1971. Participants were members of the offspring cohort aged 30 years or older, free of CVD, and with at least 1 sibling in the study. All participants were followed up for eight years.
"We found that participants who had a brother or sister with cardiovascular disease had higher levels of risk factors compared with participants who had a sibling without the disease," Murabito said.
The increased risk appears to be attributable to a combination of genetics and childhood environmental exposures, the study found.
The study implies that sibling cardiovascular disease is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and can serve as a useful marker for familial vulnerability to heart disease, the researchers noted.
Risks for heart disease include family history of the condition, age, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, current or former smoking, physical inactivity and diabetes. Having a parent or sibling with heart disease has long been known to increase risk.
The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
(Agencies)
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