Healthy Eating may Eliminate Genetic Heart Disease Risk

Genetics has long been viewed as a key risk factor in heart disease. And with heart disease taking more lives than any other disease or illness, this is something that shouldn't be ignored. Basically, this means individuals with an immediate family member who has heart disease will also have a greater risk of developing it themselves. However, a new study has found that healthy eating can eliminate the genetic risk factor of heart disease.

Researchers found that people with a genetic risk factor of heart disease can lower their risk -- and even eliminate it altogether, so that genetics no longer affects their risk of heart disease -- through healthy eating. For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 55,000 men and women from several existing studies, paying close attention to their dieting, lifestyle choices, and whether or not they developed heart disease. Researchers also analyzed participants' risk for developing heart disease by using a system of 50 gene variants, which has previously been used to evaluate heart disease risk in other studies and medical applications.

So, what did they found? Researchers discovered that genetic heart disease, as a risk factor, was eliminated through healthy eating. This includes a low-fat diet consisting of lean meats, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, and whole grains. Of course, not all fats are bad. There are both bad and good fats, and including more of the latter into your daily diet can further protect against heart disease. Good fats consist of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which have been shown to improve heart health by lowering levels of bad cholesterol and raising levels of good cholesterol.

Now for the bad news: researchers also discovered that eating the wrong foods can increase a person's risk of developing heart disease. So even if an individual has no prior genetic heart disease risk, he or she may still increase their risk of developing heart disease by consuming the wrong foods.

"If you've been dealt a good hand, you could really harm yourself by having an unfavorable lifestyle," said the study's lead author. "You basically take your heart attack rate up into the ranges of the people with the highest genetic risk. We can change this with lifestyle. We always say 80 percent of heart disease is preventable with lifestyle changes. This just gives more evidence; where people at the highest risk of heart disease, there were still things that were modifiable."

This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.