A variant of leukotriene A4 hydrolase, a gene involved in leukotriene synthesis, has been found to increase the risk of heart attacks in African-Americans.
Link: NY Times.
Among Americans of European ancestry, the variant is quite common, but it causes only a small increase in risk, about 16 percent.
The opposite is true among African-Americans. Only 6 percent of African-Americans have inherited the variant gene, but they are 3.5 times as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who carry the normal version of the gene, a team of DeCode scientists led by Dr. Anna Helgadottir reported in an article released online yesterday by Nature Genetics.
