NIH Radio
Framingham Study Shows Parents Who Live Long Lives Pass On Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
Brief Description:
New evidence from the Framingham Heart Study shows that people whose parents lived longer were more likely to avoid developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease in middle age than their peers whose parents died at a younger age.
Transcript:
Schmalfeldt: We can't choose our parents. But if we could, we would probably want to choose parents who live long, healthy lives. According to a long-standing study, the benefits would extend beyond having your parents around well into your own adulthood. New evidence from the Framingham Heart Study shows that people whose parents lived longer were more likely to avoid developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease in middle age than their peers whose parents died at a younger age. Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the study, shared some of the reasons for this finding.
Levy: We certainly already know that some of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease that emerged in this project as being related to parental longevity are also passed down in a genetic manner from parent to child. High blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, these are heritable traits. But in addition there's a shared family environment, and risk factors such as cigarette smoking tend to run within families.
Schmalfeldt: The Framingham Heart Study is a project of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute begun in 1948 to identify the common factors or characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease by following its development over a long period of time in a large group of participants in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. But even if your parents didn't live to be 85 years old, Dr. Levy said you can still take steps to live a longer, healthier life yourself.
Levy: For those of us who didn't choose our parents wisely, we can still do a great deal to modify our destiny by controlling those very risk factors that run in families that do predispose us to early cardiovascular disease. And by modifying them we can improve our health and prolong our life.
Schmalfeldt: The Framingham Heart Study has been the source of key research findings regarding the contributions of hypertension, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and other risk factors to the development of cardiovascular disease. Investigators are now assessing a third generation of participants in the study as they look into other areas — such as the role of genetic factors in cardiovascular disease, as well as the use of new biomarkers and diagnostic tests to identify individuals at high risk. You can learn more about the Framingham Heart Study at www.nhlbi.nih.gov. From the National Institutes of Health, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt in Bethesda, Maryland.
About This Audio Report
Date: 3/16/2007
Reporter: Bill Schmalfeldt
Sound Bite: Dr. Daniel Levy
Topic: Cardiovascular Disease
Institute(s): NHLBI
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