Age-Dependent Prevalence of Vascular Disease-Associated Polymorphisms Among 2689 Volunteer Blood Donors (Oak Ridge Conference‪)‬

Vascular disease is a major cause of mortality in Western societies. The development of vascular disease involves the interaction of multiple genetic factors and environmental influences. Numerous polymorphisms have been identified within genes encoding peptides directly and indirectly involved in hemostasis. Many of these genetic markers have been associated with vascular disease in studies evaluating defined patient groups; however, the potential impact of these risk factors, individually and in combination with one another, on overall health and longevity remains unclear. We hypothesized that deleterious alleles, or allelic combinations, will decrease in frequency as a function of population age. Comparison of genotype frequencies among age-stratified healthy populations may be a useful strategy to identify polymorphisms associated with common human diseases, such as vascular disease and cancer. In multifactorial diseases, such as vascular disease, the analysis of large numbers of age-stratified healthy individuals for multiple loci may provide insight into which combinations of high-risk alleles are clinically relevant. To test this hypothesis, the frequencies of the six vascular disease-associated mutations were measured among a cohort of 2689 healthy volunteer Caucasian blood donors. FACTOR v G1691A