They reported their finding today at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Smoking can increase the risk for spasm, but the precise reason for coronary artery spasm has been largely unknown.
Nitric oxide is a key chemical in controlling blood vessel dilation.
Varying levels of the chemical stimulate blood vessels to relax or constrict to meet the heart's increasing or decreasing demand for blood flow. From there we decided to target the eNOS gene to find a genetic cause of coronary artery spasm. In the study, Yoshimura and colleagues compared risk factors and genetic findings between 201 individuals diagnosed with coronary artery spasm and 345 healthy volunteers. The researchers revealed that the eNOS gene mutation is the most predictive risk factor for coronary artery spasm, followed by cigarette smoking. Individuals with the gene mutation had twice the risk of having a spasm as individuals without the mutation.