A GENETIC PROPENSITY TO HIGH FACTOR-VII IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE RISK OF MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION IN MEN

Several studies have examined the relation between factor VII and coro nary artery disease by measuring factor VII levels in plasma and some found an association between high levels and disease. This suffers pro blems of interpretation concerning the causality of high factor VII le vels, because factor VII levels may be affected by atherogenic risk fa ctors and may become elevated as a consequence of atherosclerosis. We investigated the association between a genetic variant ((353)Arg-->Gln ), shown to be related to factor VII levels, and myocardial infarction in a large case-control study, including 560 cases and 644 controls. Individuals carrying the (353)Arg-Arg genotype seemed to have a lower risk of myocardial infarction (odds ratio 0.80 [95% confidence interva l 0.60-1.06]). In this study, we confirmed higher factor VII antigen a nd activity level in 529 men homozygous for the (353)Arg allele compar ed with 115 men carriers of the (353)Gln allele (around 20% higher). O ur results indicate that a genetic propensity to high factor VII level s is not associated with the risk of myocardial infarction. Since we c onfirmed the association of the (353)Arg-Arg genotype with higher fact or VII levels, we conclude that high levels of factor VII are not a ca usal determinant of myocardial infarction.