Is diastolic BP a modifiable risk factor for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?

The condition is often polygenic with many common gene variants contributing risk, researchers find
Reuters Health Staff writer

Diastolic blood pressure may be a key modifiable risk factor in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy who don’t carry one of the rare genetic mutations known to cause the condition, UK researchers say.

The genome-wide association study, reported in Nature Genetics, included 2780 cases of which 64% were sarcomere-negative and nearly 47,500 controls.

The team identified 12 genome-wide significant susceptibility loci for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Single-nucleotide polymorphism heritability indicated a strong polygenic influence, especially for sarcomere-negative HCM.