Patricia Chavez, MBBS, assistant professor of medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and heart failure and transplant cardiology specialist, Montefiore Medical Center.
Your family history can play a role in your risk of developing heart failure. If you have a parent, brother or sister with heart failure, your risk increases by 70% and 40%, respectively. There are a few genetic diseases that can cause heart failure, such as dilated cardiomyopathy, channelopathies and familial hypercholesterolemia. Black and Hispanic people are more likely to have a change (or mutation) in the TTR gene, which increases the risk for cardiac amyloidosis. Genes also play a part in other heart failure risks that run in families, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. However, genes alone do not doom you to heart failure; lifestyle is what puts the disease into motion. Therefore, it is important to take steps to protect your heart health, such as following the American Heart Association's "Life's Simple 8". Understanding your family history is key to learning your risk for heart failure; a family health tree can help you keep track of this information. In addition, genetic testing may be necessary if anyone in your family died from heart failure or a heart attack at a young age. If you have a strong family history of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity, it is important to share this information with your doctor. Ultimately, it is important for both you and your relatives to take steps to protect your heart health in order to reduce the risk of heart failure.