Gene Abnormality Protects Amish from Heart Disease

[Loyalist]

A rare genetic abnormality found in people in an insular Amish community protects them from heart disease, a discovery that could lead to new drugs to prevent heart ailments, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

About 5 percent of Old Order Amish people in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County have only one working copy rather than the normal two of a gene that makes a protein that slows the breakdown of triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.

"People who have the mutation all have low triglycerides," said Toni Pollin of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, who led the study.

"This gives us clues that ultimately could develop future treatments."

Triglycerides naturally disappear more quickly in these people than in people without this gene mutation.

High triglyceride levels, often due to a high-fat diet, can contribute to hardening and narrowing of the arteries, raising the risk of heart attack, heart disease and stroke.

New drugs might target this gene, called APOC3, to decrease the amount of the protein it produces, Pollin said in an interview.

Pollin and colleagues looked at the genes of about 800 Amish people, finding that about one in 20 had the mutation, and they also had lower triglycerides and less risk of cardiovascular disease. (Continues)

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[Arundel]

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In this small rural Missouri county where I grew up I had never seen or heard of the Amish. I moved away for several years and when I returned we were over run with "the Amish." They even have a hitching rack for their horses up town, and when we go for a drive in the country, you see horse droppings, and buggy tracks on many of the roads. People who have dealt with them do not think they are very clean, and that they treat their horses very badly. I have a lady gynecologist and I have noticed several of the women bring their babies in to her. She said she felt sorry for them because they had told her their husbands expect them to breed every year, just like a farmer does a cow.
They stay to themselves and even have their own little school. Their barns are above average, their houses below average. They seem to place more importance on their barns than their homes. They have boughten many good farms, and farm land is high. I understand they pool their money and that makes it easier for them to buy the land. I have heard people say they are inbred, and they probably are, they look like it. They just marry among themselves. They are very plain looking people, and a little smaller than the average citizen.
Last year one of their sons got tired of their way of life and started frequenting a local pub, drinking and watching tv. He then published an expose of the way they lived. It was an eye opener. It would seem that they are great on incest.
I do not like to see them here, buying land that the local people would like to have. I don't like any group that are religious fanatics, and control their womens' lives. I keep hoping they will leave some day.