BLACKS AT RISK
NEW GENETIC ANALYSIS SHOWS SOME BLACKS ARE PROTECTED FROM CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE, ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS
Genetic analysis has now been able to account for one form of ethnic diversity in disease risk among African Americans, showing that about one-fourth of participants in a study by Diane Becker and colleagues at Johns Hopkins have a genetic variation that actually protects them from disease of their coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply the heart.
BECKER: It’s the first study that shows any kind of signal in the whole genome for coronary heart disease among blacks in the United States. And it’s a protective signal which is a very positive finding. Perhaps the most significant aspect of it is that we’ve garnered enough African American participants in a very important study to take us some distance along the same route in which we have information in white populations. :26
Becker says one message of this study is the importance of study participation among groups that are often underrepresented. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.
