Southampton: University research team in medical breakthrough Study gives hope to heart disease fight IT is a killer responsible for one in three of all deaths in the UK. But now scientists have made a medical breakthrough that could lead to new treatments for heart disease.

Researchers from the University of Southampton have discovered a new process that controls the ability of arteries to regulate blood pressure. Their findings, released today, also include a potential new way of screening people for the risk of heart problems.

The study, led by Dr Graham Burdge, Reader in Human Nutrition, found a new process that controls the ability of arteries to control blood pressure. In healthy people arteries relax and constrict to keep blood pressure regulated, but that balance shifts in people who are at risk of developing high blood pressure or hardened arteries.

The team found a new pro-cess that controls that ability to constrict, which could lead to a better understanding of what causes heart disease.

The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, showed polyunsaturated fats – which are found in oily foods like fish and can help cut the risk of heart attacks – are not taken up from blood as previously thought, but made by muscle cells in the arteries. The scientists found that blocking the action of two enzymes that create polyunsaturated fats allowed them to reduce the constriction of arteries, allowing blood to flow more freely and lowering the risk of high blood pressure. They also found this process changed in arteries that showed the early signs of causing high blood pressure by looking at epigenetic changes – where genes’ functions are altered without affecting DNA.

Dr Burdge said: “Discovering a new process which controls how arteries work, and finding that it can be modified in the laboratory, raises a strong possibility for developing new medicines that may lead to better ways of treating cardiovascular disease.

“Currently it is difficult for doctors to screen people at risk of cardiovascular disease before symptoms develop. A test based on the epigenetic changes we have found could provide a new way of screening people and it might also be possible to correct this defect.”