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Posts Tagged ‘cholesteryl ester transfer protein’

Found in a press release from Media-Newswire.

“We’ve all heard the stories: Someone’s great-uncle has smoked three packs of cigarettes since he was 14, and now, at the age of 88, he’s living a fine, healthy life,” said Arthur Moss, M.D., Director of the Heart Research Follow-up Program at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Contrast that with the 52-year old neighbor, who also was a heavy smoker, and just last week, dropped dead from a heart attack. Why is it that some smokers seem unaffected by their habit and even outlive the healthiest individuals, while many other smokers suffer significant cardiac events at a relatively young age? We think we now know why.”

According to Moss, the answer lies is a common deviation of the gene CETP ( cholesteryl ester transfer protein ), a protein found in all people that controls cholesterol metabolism. Smokers with a common form of this gene are likely to suffer a heart attack 12 years earlier than a non-smoker, while smokers who do not carry this variant appear to be “protected” and have the same risk of heart attack as non-smokers.

Read the full press release…