A new healthy gene variant has been discovered by an international team of scientists, paving the way to new prevention and treatment for hypertension.
Research led by the University of Glasgow and Istituto Auxologico Italiano of Milan identified the new gene they claim lowers the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.
Individuals carrying this variant were found to have 15 per cent fewer heart-related ailments and deaths, scientists say.
The study, one of the largest ever carried out in this field of genetics, involved some 40,000 people across eight European countries.
The specific gene variant, found in chromosome 16 in human DNA, prevents hypertension through its control of uromodulin, a protein found in urine that deregulates blood pressure, the new findings say.
To identify which genetic variations play a part in a common disease such as hypertension, more than 500,000 variants were analyzed throughout the spectrum of the human genome.
The study was conducted as part of InGenious HyperCare, an EU-funded international collaboration involving 31 scientist groups from 14 countries, including Russia and China.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is one of the leading risk factors for death worldwide; the condition increases hardening of the arteries, thus predisposes individuals to heart and kidney failure.
The numbers of adults with hypertension is expected to rise to 29.2 per cent of the world’s population by 2025, which means 1.5 billion affected, according to a 2005 report published in medical journal, The Lancet.
