Family History of Heart Disease Still Matters

A cross-sectional analysis suggested that a multivariable model of clinical and genetic risk factors explains only 36% of the likelihood of family history of heart disease (FHHD), with most of the risk of a FHHD unexplained. The analysis included 166,714 UK Biobank participants with 43.2% reported a FHHD. In the multivariable model, polygenic risk score for coronary artery disease (PRS_CAD, OR 1.30), and heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH, OR 1.31) were most strongly associated with FHHD, followed by clinical risk factors: hypertension (OR 1.18), lipoprotein(a) (OR 1.17), apolipoprotein B-to-apolipoprotein A1 ratio, (OR 1.13) and triglycerides (OR 1.07). Population attributable risks analyses showed that 21.9% of the risk of reporting a FHHD is attributed to clinical factors, 22.2% is attributed to genetic factors, and 36.0% is attributed to genetic and clinical factors combined. The findings suggest that much of the self-reported FHHD is not explained by currently available genetic and clinical biomarkers and implies knowledge gap. Source: https://academic.oup.com/