The Link Between IL-1 Genetic Risk Patterns and Risk for Heart Disease

There is considerable evidence that people who test positive for one of the IL-1 Risk Patterns have a high risk for heart disease. For example:

• By looking at families whose members had heart attacks at an early age, scientists were able to determine which parts of the human genome contributed to the higher risk in these cases. One of the strongest genetic contributions to early heart attacks was from the region of the genome where IL-1 genes are found.⁴ [For more information, click here].
• People who had a heart attack or a stroke at a young age were more likely to test positive for one of the IL-1 Risk Patterns than healthy individuals of the same age and sex.⁵
  [For more information, click here].
• People who tested positive for one of the three Risk Patterns were more likely to have a heart attack.⁶ [For more information, click here] .
• C-reactive protein levels tended to be higher overall in people who tested positive for the IL-1 Risk Pattern.⁷ [For more information, click here] . C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker for active inflammation and people with raised CRP levels have high risk of heart disease.^{8, 9} [For more information, click here] .
• In people who were undergoing coronary angiography, those who tested positive for one of the IL-1 Risk Patterns were found to have double the CRP levels compared with those who tested negative.¹⁰ [For more information, click here] .

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