Parental History Predicts Heart Disease in Offspring

Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, Feinberg School researcher Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, and colleagues have found the strongest evidence yet that cardiovascular disease in parents, especially at an early age, is a major predictor of their children having a heart attack or stroke in middle age.

In the May 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, assistant professor of preventive medicine and of medicine (Division of Cardiology), and coauthors share results showing a 100 percent increase in risk for men and a 70 percent increase for women when at least one parent had early-onset cardiovascular disease (before age 55 in fathers and 65 in mothers). The increased risk was found after accounting for potential risk factors such as smoking, obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol.

Participants in the Framingham study have been followed up for more than 50 years, and their children for more than 30 years. In this study, researchers reviewed data for more than 2,300 children, of which 164 men and 79 women had suffered a heart attack or stroke. The researchers note that parents' cardiovascular disease made the most difference in predicting risk for children with intermediate levels of risk factors, such as cholesterol level and blood pressure, for whom decisions about treatment are difficult.

"Our results shed important light on the true magnitude of the association between offspring and parental cardiovascular disease," remarks Dr. Lloyd-Jones. "Patients and their physicians ought to be concerned if there is a bona fide parental history of cardiovascular disease, even if there are also just borderline elevations of other risk factors such as cholesterol and blood pressure."