Heart Disease Heriditary?

[wdsmith32]

My father passed away at the age of 36 from a massive heart attack.  Last month my sister passed away at the age of 47 from a massive heart attack.  I am 39 years old and wanted to know if this could be hereditary.  Let me add that my father was a severe alcoholic and my sister had abused both drugs and alcohol for years before getting her life straight.  Could their problems be caused from there lifestyles or should I be concerned that this is a condition that I have to worry about?  

[skydnsr]

First of all, my condolences on your father and sister's deaths.  

What is striking is that 36 and 47 is really young to die of heart disease, even with a bad lifestyle.  As someone who has had a thoracic aortic aneurysm, your story makes me think of the possibility of familial aortic disease.  Sudden death from aortic dissection or rupture is often mistaken for a "massive heart attack."   Unless an autopsy was done, the true cause of death is not discovered, and the family of the aortic rupture/dissection victim continues to think that their loved one died of a myocardial infarction.  

A tragic example of undiagnosed aortic disease is John Ritter, who at age 54 was thought to be having a heart attack when he took ill and went to the emergency room.  He was there for several hours and died on the cath table when he bled out from a "shredded" aorta.  Another tragic example is Jonathan Larson, who at age 35 went to two different emergency rooms in one weekend with chest pain, was sent home from each of them, and then died shortly afterward at his apartment of an aortic dissection.

In addition to aortic disease, there are other types of non-atherosclerotic heart disorders that can cause death in relatively young adults.  That said, I agree with everything ed34 stated above.  You won't go wrong by following his advice.  But also be aware that coronary artery disease is not the only type of heart disease, and not all heart disease is lifestyle-determined.  

If you decide to get yourself checked out, know that a stress test is not the be-all and end-all of cardiac diagnosis, even though it is a good test for coronary artery disease.  If you want to get checked for aortic problems, that is going to require some type of imaging such as CT or MRI, and doctors don't usually order that unless they have a good reason to think they are going to find something.  So you need a thorough history and a careful work-up, to make sure you don't have whatever your father and sister died of.

For more information about thoracic aortic disorders, see www.bicuspidfoundation.com.

Good luck, I hope you are fine, and you probably are.

[ed34]

There are specific genes which seem to be common among heart disease victims, but this requires a lot more research. There are also genes common in people for other diseases such as cancer etc, but it does not mean that everyone with those genes will fall victim to those diseases. It simply means that if you reproduce the right conditions, you are much more likely than anyone else without those genes to contract the disease.
You are wise to look at your long term health now and you can certainly put your chances of heart disease much lower in the probability scale. Not smoking is an important one and will dramatically decrease any risk. You can further reduce your risk by ensuring your blood pressure is normal and avoiding stress as much as possible. You can ensure you eat healthily and regularly exercise even if it's just a 30 minute walk each day. Also, have your cholesterol levels checked.
I hope this helps.