Genetic disparity marks male, female hearts

A new genetic differences between men and women hearths has been found by researchers from Washington University in St. Louis. Even though healthy men and women have similarly structured hearts, researchers have discovered genetic differences in diseased hearts that could could pave the way to personalised treatment of various heart ailments. Unexpectedly, researchers found huge gender differences in the atria

Generally, men are more susceptible to developing atrial fibrillation, an irregular, rapid heartbeat that may lead to stroke, while women are more likely to develop long-QT syndrome, a rhythm disorder that can cause rapid heartbeats and sudden cardiac death.

The results showed that women with failing hearts have a weaker system of gene expression than men - males showed overall higher expression levels of nearly all of the 89 genes than women.