Parental earliness of CHD and parental history of smoking as determinants of carotid IMT in the progeny

Objective To assess whether earliness of CHD (< 60 year of age) is a determinant of carotid intima media thicknes (IMT) in the progeny; and whether the parental history of smoking may act as a confounder in the estimation of atherosclerosis heritability by carotid IMT measurements Method 116 offspring of patients with premature CHD (P-CHD) and 42 offspring of patients with not premature CHD (NP-CHD) were assessed clinically and with carotid B-mode ultrasound Results The age of CHD onset was 50±6y in parents with P-CHD and 64±3y in parents with NP-CHD. These groups had similar prevalence of hypertension, NIDDM and dyslipidemia. History of cigarette smoking was positive in 74% of parents with P-CHD and in 45% of parents with NP-CHD (p<0.001).The offspring were basically healthy young subjects (age 33±5.8; females 51%, never smokers 61%, normal weight 74%; normotensive 89%, LDL-C130 66%). As expected, IMT was significantly lower in females and directly related to age. Progeny of P-CHD and NP-CHD had similar BP, BMI, TC, LDL-C, HDL-C and TG but the former were younger (28.5±5.4 vs. 32.6±2.3 y, p <0.0001). After data adjustment for sex, age, and smoking habits, Max IMT in offspring of P-CHD subjects was significantly higher than in offspring of NP-CHD (0.94±0.02 vs. 0.86±0.03, p=0.048). No differences in IMT measures were found when the progeny of CHD patients with or without history of smoking were compared Conclusions parental earliness of CHD is a determinant of carotid Max IMT in the progeny whereas parental history of smoking is not. Funding Centro Cardiologico Monzino. Italian Ministry of Health