While heredity certainly plays a role in your risk for heart disease, it turns out not to be as large a role as we thought in the past.

Researchers at the Intermountain Heart Institute in Salt Lake City undertook a study that involved comparing the heart health of 700,000 with the genetic information in a registry containing data on 23 million people.

They looked at the records of patients with different degrees of coronary disease to see who did or did not suffer a heart attack.

The researchers found that although severe coronary artery disease can be inherited, people with less severe heart disease also had heart attacks — and that even occurred in people with no family history of heart trouble.

This important study provides new evidence that so-called “bad” genes can be overcome by a healthy lifestyle, a result I’ve seen over and over in my practice.