Cytokine Genes and Coronary Heart Disease in an Indian Population

If your initial curiosity has been kindled, read this book! Oops….some bad genes play bad games in our body and most of the times ‘won’ and leave us as the ‘losers’. In this book, the authors provide an excursus on a vegetarian population from North India that follow sedentary lifestyle and some bad genes become good players in these individuals and predispose them to heart diseases. The book presents a study that examined how certain cytokine genes tumor necrosis factors (TNFs)-TNF α, TNF β and interferons (IFNs)-IFN γ loci contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, such as demographics (age, gender), lifestyle (smoking, alcoholism), lipid phenotypes and body anthropometrics, at the population level, and to atherosclerosis at the vessel wall level. The study provided information supporting a direct role for IFN γ and indirect role for TNF α and TNF β in the etiology of CVD, and paved the way for future Cytokines-CVD studies and also shed light on why these bad genes win the game while we lose it. It is because the environmental factors such as lifestyle factors viz., smoking and alcohol consumption join the group of these bad genes and help them in winning the game.