They find that a parental heart injury can affect their offspring

Madrid. The cardiac injuries suffered by parents can affect their children, and more so when the damage suffered by some parents occurred at an early age, according to an international team of researchers. Stress during the early years of life can cause lasting effects that persist in adult life, but so far less was known about the possible consequences inherited for the next generation.

Researchers from the Carlos III National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) and the University of Bern (Switzerland) have published in the journal 'Circulation' how a paternal cardiac injury causes alterations in cardiac function inherited by the next generation.