ABSTRACT
R e d ic tin g the future is never easy, but in cardiology there are some early reports that, if true, are bound to change the way we think of heart disease.
For example, the entire field of prevention could be made more palatable to all of us if we knew in advance who among us were most susceptible to heart disease in later life. It is true that our family histories and our risk-factor profiles provide valuable data in this regard. Early results of studies in offspring of adults with heart disease have shown that some offspring already have higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels than do their peers,
or even than some of their siblings. These children require aggressive risk-factor management. To identify these children, more intensive screening of the children of parents with heart disease is needed. This may involve isolation of genes in the search for even more sophisticated “ markers” of future disease.
