Genetic Heart Disease, All You Need to Know!

While you cannot control the genes you were born with, you can control how they affect your life. If you’re diagnosed with Genetic Heart Disease, we’ll help you in this blog so that you and your family may understand the risks and what you can do about them.

Is Heart Disease Genetic?

Unlike some conditions related to aging or lifestyle, inherited heart disease (sometimes called familial or Genetic, or Hereditary Heart Disease) passes on through your parents’ genes. This means that it’s genetic.

The genetic disease of the heart passes down through families. They are sometimes called genetic or hereditary heart diseases. They can affect people of all ages. If left untreated, some inherited heart conditions can obviously be life-threatening.

• Many cardiac disorders can be inherited, including cardiomyopathy, heart disease (genetic), high blood cholesterol, and arrhythmias. In fact, coronary artery disease leading to heart failure, stroke, and heart attack can run in families, indicating inherited genetic risk factors.

Genetics can influence the risk factors of heart diseases in several ways. A genetic variation (mutation) in a single gene can affect the likelihood of developing heart disease. These genes control all aspects of the cardiovascular system, from the strength of blood vessels to how the cells in the heart communicate.

For instance, genetic variation can change the way a particular protein works so as the body starts processing cholesterol differently. It increases the risk of artery blockages. Genetic variations pass through from parents to offspring in the DNA of sperm and eggs. The parents’ genetic code is then copied into every cell in the baby’s body during development.

Heart Disease Inherited from Father or Mother?

To know if you have a family history or if you can inherit Heart Disease. And if you are at high risk of developing heart diseases. You need to look at some of these research studies.

Some studies depict that men can inherit heart disease from their fathers, say scientists who have tracked the disease on the Y chromosome that fathers pass on to their children. By studying the DNA of more than 3,000 men, they discovered that a specific type of sex chromosome increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 50%. Up to 1/5 of men carry this version of the Y, and the risk from it is added to other heart risk factors such as cholesterol, etc.

Scientists already know that men develop heart disease a decade earlier than women, on average. At the age of 40, the lifetime risk of heart disease is one in two for men and one in three for women. Sometimes, there are rare genetic heart conditions. Lifestyle factors like smoking and high blood pressure are significant contributors. The latest work suggests that the male Y chromosome may also play a role in a usual form of heart disease (coronary artery disease) that kills thousands of people each year.

Your body is made up of billions of cells. Every cell has a nucleus containing information that makes you unique. This information is called your genes. We all have between 20,000 and 25,000 different genes each.

Genes Affect Appearance

Genes affect our appearance and bodily function, and we inherit them from our parents. The genetic disease of the heart is due to a defect (or mutation) in one or more of our genes. There is also a 50% chance that you can pass it on to your children if you do have or if one of your parents has a defective gene.

It’s possible to have a defective gene that can lead to heart disease. However, you may never either develop any signs or symptoms of the disease itself. If this happens, you can still pass the defective gene to your child, and there is no way to know how it can affect him. Eventually most of the time genetic heart condition leads to sudden death.

To know if you have a family history or if you are at high risk of developing heart diseases.  You can depend on the following points. You can know if you have a family history. As well, if you are at high risk of developing circulatory diseases by looking at two things:

• Which family member has been diagnosed with heart or circulatory diseases such as:
  • a heart attack
  • an accident cerebrovascular.
• Their age at the time of diagnosis.

You can know what you have is called a strong family history? if:

• • Your father or brother was under 55 when diagnosed
  • Your mother or sister was under 65 when diagnosed.

Is Heart Disease Genetic or Hereditary?

The genetic disease of the heart passes down through families called hereditary heart disease or genetic heart disease. Hereditary diseases are due to a defect in one or more of your genes. If one of your parents has a faulty/defective gene, there is a 50% chance that you will inherit it. The most common hereditary diseases are:

• cardiomyopathies (disease of the heart muscle),
• channelopathies (inherited life-threatening heart rhythms),
• familial hypercholesterolemia (very high cholesterol).

The genetic disease of the heart or Family history is more complex.  Understandably it can be the combination of shared genes and shared environments that passes down from generation to generation. However, It increases the risk of developing a disease rather than just one defective gene.

What types of Heart Disease are Hereditary?

Following the pattern of a heart problem in your family can help your doctor predict the likelihood that you or other family members have the same problem. In order to know better here are some hereditary heart diseases include:

1. 1. Cardiac amyloidosis
   2. Cardiomyopathy
   3. Heart arrhythmias
   4. Heart valve disease
   5. Cardiac tumors
   6. Familial thoracic aortic aneurysm syndrome
   7. Pulmonary hypertension
   8. High cholesterol

Do Herditary Heart Disease Prevented?

It cannot be prevented entirely, but you can lower the risk of heart diseases by changing your lifestyles, such as weight loss or exercise. In order to help prevent or minimize the effects of heart diseases, you can depend on:

• Healthy living, such as avoiding smoking, alcohol, caffeine, and foods high in fat to improve health.
• Medicines to help regulate heart function or minimize the possibility of blood clots and cardiovascular surgery to repair or replace valves, vessels, or other damaged parts of the heart.
• Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD), a device that automatically corrects arrhythmia.

If any of you have a family history of heart disease.  First Gather information about your loved ones with heart disease, specifically, including the age of Diagnosation. Besides, It is imperative if you have a parent or sibling with heart disease. Finally, share this information with your doctor to work together on heart disease treatment measures to reduce your risk of getting some heart disease.

At last, to manage hereditary heart disease and prevent and make the risk rate lower, we may recommend one or more treatments. To help and as well to prevent or minimize the effects of heart diseases. You can depend on the following treatment plan and medications. As a result, your heart disease treatment plan will depend on your condition that may include:

• Being physically active
• Eating a healthy diet
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Limiting alcohol consumption
• Giving up smoking
• Controlling blood pressure
• Controlling cholesterol
• Managing diabetes, if you have it
• Taking medications as needed to treat:

1. High cholesterol
2. High blood pressure
3. Diabetes

• Having blood test screening that your doctor recommends.

As a result, you can manage heart disease and live a healthy life.