The influence of genetic risk and lifestyle on the development of coronary artery disease

In the past years, almost 100 genomic loci have been identified to be genome-wide significantly associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) (1). The alleles conferring the risk at these loci are often frequently found in the European population, such that each person carries one or two of these risk alleles per locus. Thus, every individual carries a given number of risk alleles, some more—resulting in a high genetic risk score for CAD—and some less. Khera and colleagues asked the question whether a healthy lifestyle can modulate the genetic risk.