Prevention: Report Urges Screening for Family of Heart Patients

By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Doctors know that siblings and other close family members of people who have heart attacks are at increased risk for heart problems of their own. So when patients are brought to a hospital, why not identify them and suggest that they get a screening?
That is the suggestion made in a report by researchers from the University of Glasgow in Scotland in the September issue of BMJ.
The researchers pointed to a number of studies showing that first-degree relatives — siblings, children and parents — are much more likely to have heart problems. Among the studies was one done in Utah reporting that more than 70 percent of heart attacks and other medical problems related to early heart disease involved just 14 percent of families in the state.
There are several explanations. Simple genetics accounts for much of the increased risk. But close relatives of people with unhealthy behaviors like poor eating or smoking are more likely to do the same things.
“First-degree relatives are an obvious but neglected group at which primary prevention should be targeted,” the authors wrote.