Can our genes predict our high blood pressure risk?

One in every three adults globally has high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.
Every year, about 10 million people die due to the condition.
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom say they have identified more than 100 new regions of the human genome and more than 2,000 independent genetic signals that appear to influence blood pressure.
Scientists say these findings may help doctors better predict a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure.


Researchers estimate that one in every three adultsTrusted Source around the world has hypertension, also known as high blood pressure.

Every year, about 10 million people die worldwide due to this condition.

While certain unmodifiable risk factors, such as ageTrusted Source, ethnicityTrusted Source, and some existing health conditionsTrusted Source can increase a person’s potential for developing hypertension, there are also a number of lifestyle changes — including losing weightTrusted Source, eating healthyTrusted Source, lowering salt intakeTrusted Source, exercisingTrusted Source, and not smokingTrusted Source — that can help reduce that risk.

Now, researchers from Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom say they have identified more than 100 new regions of the human genome and more than 2,000 independent genetic signals that appear to influence a person’s blood pressure.

Scientists of the new studyTrusted Source, recently published in the journal Nature Genetics, say these findings may help doctors better predict a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure.



Genetics and high blood pressure

For this study, researchers analyzed genetic data from more than 1 million individuals from the UK Biobank, the International Consortium for Blood PressureTrusted Source, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs’ Million Veteran Program, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s biorepository in Tennessee.

At the study’s conclusion, scientists said they identified 113 novel regions of the human genome, also known as genomic loci. They also found more than 2,000 independent genetic signals for blood pressure across all loci, explained Helen Warren, PhD, a senior lecturer in statistical genetics at The William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London and senior author of the study.

“Even though many genetic variants within the same ‘locus’ — a specifically defined region on a chromosome — will be similar, we have also found many examples of ‘loci,’ which contain multiple, independent, distinct ‘signals’,” Warren told Medical News Today.



“These are like different clusters of genetic variants within a ‘locus,’ but which are shown to be uncorrelated, so they are not similar to each other and the biological mechanism through which they influence blood pressure regulation may be different,” she explained.



7 times greater hypertension risk for those with high genetic risk

Warren and her research team then took these new genetic findings and used them to calculate polygenic risk scoresTrusted Source.

“Blood pressure is a highly polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by thousands of different genetic variants, and each of these genetic variants will only have a small effect on increasing or decreasing blood pressure levels,” Warren explained.

“However, if we combine all the effects of all associated genetic variants into one single aggregated risk score, adding up the effects across all variants over the whole genome, which we call a polygenic risk score, this explains much larger effects on blood pressure,” she added.

“So a polygenic risk score essentially gives each of us a score, according to how many risk variants we carry,” Warren continued. “Knowing someone’s genetic risk score would enable a doctor to know if the patient was in the high genetic risk group.”

By using polygenic risk scores, scientists said they found that study participants with the highest genetic risk for hypertension have mean systolic blood pressure levels that are about 17 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) higher than those with the lowest genetic risk.


The highest genetic risk group also has a seven-times likelihood of developing high blood pressure compared to those with the lowest genetic risk.

Website: worldtopscientists.com

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