Amish gene found to protect heart

A RARE genetic abnormality found in people in an insular Amish community protects them from heart disease, a discovery that could lead to new drugs to prevent heart ailments, US researchers said yesterday.

About 5% of Old Order Amish people in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County have only one working copy rather than the normal two of a gene that makes a protein that slows the breakdown of triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.

“People who have the mutation all have low triglycerides,” said Toni Pollin of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, who led the study.

Triglycerides naturally disappear more quickly in these people than in people without this gene mutation. High triglyceride levels, often due to a high-fat diet, can contribute to hardening and narrowing of the arteries, raising the risk of heart attack, disease and stroke.

Pollin and colleagues looked at the genes of about 800 Amish people, finding that about one in 20 had the mutation, and they also had lower triglycerides and less risk of cardiovascular disease.

They also had high levels of HDL-cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol, and low levels of LDL-cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol.