Study leader Qing Wang and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio said triglycerides, the main form of dietary fat, continuously circulate in the blood, but if their concentration elevates, the risk of atherosclerosis and subsequently heart disease increases.

Circulating triglygerides levels depend on many factors including diet, exercise and smoking, but around 40 percent of the variation in the population is due to genetics.

Wang and colleagues scanned 714 Caucasians from 388 families with premature heart disease.

The study, published in the Journal of Lipid Research, identified a novel region on chromosome 1. This genetic locus contains 375 known genes, but the researchers highlighted three genes that are especially promising candidates: angiopoietin-like 3, which inhibits enzymes that break down fats; the receptor for the appetite hormone leptin; and sterol carrier protein 2, which helps convert cholesterol into bile acids.