Genetic Test Useless for Predicting Cardiac Events

Still think they will find a genetic cure for overfatness?

Genetic risk scores based on multiple genes for cardiovascular disease failed to predict actual events in a large cohort study, researchers said.
Analysis of 19,313 participants in the Women's Genome Health Study, followed for a median of 12 years, yielded a hazard ratio of exactly 1.00 (95% CI 0.99 to 1.01) per risk-associated allele for major cardiovascular events after adjusting for traditional risk factors, according to a study report published in the Feb. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Nina P. Paynter, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues calculated two genetic risk scores: one based on 101 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously found to be associated with cardiovascular disease or known risk factors such as high LDL cholesterol, and another based on 12 SNPs associated only with incident cardiovascular disease.

"Neither genetic risk score remained associated with incident cardiovascular disease after adjustment for traditional risk factors, nor had any significant impact on discrimination or reclassification," Paynter and colleagues wrote.

They emphasized that they weren't disputing "the importance of genetic data in understanding biology and etiology." Rather, it appears that genomic variants associated with cardiovascular disease are closely tied to already known risk factors. They predicted that so-called metabolomic and proteomic research may be more fruitful in improving patients' risk classification.

An important clinical implication is that genetic risk testing for cardiovascular disease, now marketed directly to consumers, is likely a waste of money.

Think again.