UNIVERSITY of Ballarat researchers have discovered a possible breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease. Working alongside researchers from the University of Leicester, Professor Fadi Charchar and a team from the School of Health Sciences analysed DNA from more than 3000 men. They found that 90 per cent of Y chromosomes belong to one of two major groups and were able to establish that men with the haplogroup I group had a higher risk of coronary artery disease. The research group last week published their findings in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet. They also found that the risk is independent of traditional medical factors including high cholesterol, high blood pressure and smoking.Professor Charchar, associate dean of research, said the study provided insight into the genetic variants and potential new approaches to understanding heritable coronary artery disease in men compared to women.“Excitingly, Australia played a major role in the discovery of how the Y chromosome contributes to sex determination, now it plays a major role in the discovery of the way this small human chromosome contributes to a major killer disease in humans,” he said. The research took four years to complete and was primarily funded by the British Heart Foundation and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Dr Helene Wilson, research advisor for the British Heart Foundation said coronary heart disease was a cause of heart attacks. “Lifestyle choices such as poor diet and smoking are major causes, but inherited factors carried in DNA are also part of the picture,” Dr Wilson said. “The next step is to identify specifically which genes are responsible and how they might increase heart attack risk.”