VARIANTS OF TWO GENES LINKED TO CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE.(MAIN)

Byline: GINA KOLATA New York Times

People who inherit common variants of two genes have a risk of developing congestive heart failure that is 10 times as great as those who do not have the variants, researchers report today.

The researchers looked at 159 patients with congestive heart failure and compared them with 189 people who were similar in other respects, including race, but who did not have the disease. They discovered that their suspicions linking the genes to the heart ailment were correct.

The findings are being published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

One of the altered genes confers a fivefold increase in risk of …