Doctors identify genetic heart problem affecting Spanish families

A HEART defect that affects only males has been discovered by Spanish doctors.

The genetic disease has had a particular impact on families in Tenerife.

A study of 52 families by doctors from four Spanish hospitals identified the mutation, which causes dilated cardiomyopathy.

The report showed that 13 of the families come from the same small region of northwestern Tenerife and are descended from the same person first identified as suffering the mutation.

“For years we have seen that Tenerife has a high number of cases of this disease, 80% concentrated in the northwest of the island in the mountains of Teno, but we did not know why,” said Tenerife cardiologist José Javier Grillo.