Many African-Americans have a gene that prolongs life after heart failure
April 21, 2008 | Source: KurzweilAI
Washington University School of Medicine researchers and colleagues have found that about 40 percent of African-Americans have a genetic variant that can protect them after heart failure and prolong their lives through an effect that resembles that of beta blockers.
The new study offers a reason why beta blockers–drugs widely prescribed for heart failure–don’t appear to benefit some African-Americans. The GRK5 gene codes for the GRK5 enzyme, which depresses the response to adrenaline and similar hormonal substances that increase how hard the heart works. So African-American heart failure patients with this genetic variant have about the same survival rate, even if they don’t take beta blockers, as Caucasian and African-American heart failure patients who do take beta blockers.
About 5 million people in the United States have chronic heart failure, and it results in about 300,000 deaths each year. Beta blockers slow heart rate and lower blood pressure to decrease the heart’s workload and prevent lethal cardiac arrhythmias.