Question: What have you found out about the link between lifestyle and behaviour and heart disease?

Ellie Paige answered on 5 Nov 2016:

Hi there.

Good question. There are quite a few things that we know through research that affect your chance of getting heart disease. For example, we know that smoking, being overweight, having high blood pressure and having high cholesterol can increase your chance of developing heart disease. Our diet and how much we exercise are key drivers of our weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. So if we change our diet to a more healthy one or start doing more exercise then we can lower our chances of developing heart disease. Other things, such as having a related disease such as diabetes, or having a family member who has had heart disease can also increase your chance of developing it.

The group that I work with is currently looking at the role of genetics in heart disease. There are millions of small changes that occur naturally across our genomes and some of these changes can affect biological processes in your body that may be important in how heart disease develops. If we understand which changes in genes are important in heart disease we can use this information to develop new or better medicines to either treat heart disease or help prevent it.