WebMD Medical News Laura J. Martin, MD Oct. 11, 2011 -- We know
that eating a very healthy diet appears to make heart disease
less likely, but now that even goes for people whose genes put
them at a higher than normal risk of heart trouble. "A diet high
in fruits and vegetables appears to mitigate the genetic risk of
a heart attack," says researcher Sonia S. Anand, MD, PhD,
professor of medicine and epidemiology at McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The finding, if it bears out, could
affect many people at risk for heart disease because of a
genetic variant that researchers have only recently linked with
heart attack. It could also call into question the suggestion
that you can't help your genes. In general, about 50% of people
carry one copy of the bad gene and 20% carry two copies, Anand
tells WebMD. The study is published in PLoS Medicine. Anand and
colleagues evaluated how diet could affect variants in the
chromosome 9p21 region. In 2007, scientists from several
countries found variants in