Diabetes, Heart Disease Linked to a Single Gene

Researchers say they have found a gene that for the first timecan be directly associated with coronary artery disease and adultdiabetes.

The study "opens wider the possibility of genetic testing toassess a person's risk profile more specifically," Dr. Xing Li Wangand his colleagues reported.

Their report appears in today's edition of the journalCirculation, published by the Dallas-based American HeartAssociation.The gene targeted by the research is a mutant, or changed, formof one that tells the body how to make an enzyme that turns fats inthe bloodstream into a source of energy.In the study of 475 men and women, people carrying the mutantgene were 1.73 times …