Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Heart Beat: Heart disease - it's all relative

Heart Beat

Heart disease — it’s all relative

Brothers and sisters often share traits like facial features, body shape, certain turns of phrase, or a fondness for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Add heart trouble to the list. A report from the second-generation Framingham Offspring Study indicates that having a sibling with cardiovascular disease increases your chances of having it, too. The increase is on a par with having a parent with cardiovascular disease.

The study covered a lot of territory, defining cardiovascular disease as angina (chest pain), heart attack, needing a procedure to bypass or open a narrowed or blocked artery, stroke or transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke), peripheral artery disease, or death due to a heart or circulation-related problem.

Among nearly 2,500 Framingham residents who were examined several times over an eight-year period, there were 6.5 cardiovascular events a year for every 1,000 people whose siblings did not have cardiovascular disease, compared with 15.3 events a year for every 1,000 people whose siblings did have cardiovascular disease. The elevated risk persisted even when the researchers statistically adjusted for risk factors that siblings might share. The results were published in the December 28, 2005, Journal of the American Medical Association.

Shared genes are partly responsible for cardiovascular disease “running in families.” Siblings also share diets, activity patterns, and other lifestyles or habits while growing up, which may also contribute to the pattern.

In the old days, people didn’t talk as openly as they do now about their medical problems. Some “dropped dead” or faded away without knowing what was ailing them. So you may not know much about your parents’ heart health. This report from Framingham suggests that such information gathered from your siblings may be just as helpful.

Creating a family medical tree is a good idea for you and, if you have them, for your siblings, children, and grandchildren. An easy way is to make a list of everyone’s diseases and when they were first diagnosed, or you can buy software to help you keep track of this information. Another option is to use the U.S. Surgeon General’s free Family History Initiative. An interactive version is available at www.hhs.gov/familyhistory. You can also order a copy by calling (toll free) 888-275-4772 and asking for “My Family Health Portrait” in English or Spanish.

E-mail This | Print This

Last updated:	August 21, 2006